Hasta La Gadget!

Remember that $1 billion decision that Samsung violated Apple’s patents? One of the patents in question, the famous “rubber banding” or “physical inertia” patent, has been completely nullified by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Samsung informed Judge Koh earlier this week.  The patent describes how when scrolling on a touch screen, and you reach the end of a passage, how the screen bounces back up.  The request to reexamine the patent was filed during the spring, but the non-final office action nullifying its claims wasn’t filed until earlier this week. The process isn’t final, though: the new declaration is a “first-glance” verdict that could be overturned in the future.

The patent in question, “List scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display,” is a key patent that Apple has used to defend what it claims is its intellectual property. It’s a core Apple patent, so expect a lengthy period of reexaminations and appeals. If Apple still isn’t happy after the USPTO makes its final decision, they could appeal the decision conceivably all the way to the Supreme Court.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Jury foreman in $1.05 billion Samsung v. Apple case has a serious conflict of interest, HTC 4G patents brought up against Apple are probably valid, says US Judge,

The US Patent and Trademark Office may have just thrown a wrench into Apple’s recent courtroom triumph over Samsung by invalidating one of the patents at the heart of the victory: rubber-banding. We noted at the time that Apple hit a “home run” with that particular IP, as jurors declared that all 21 disputed Samsung devices infringed it, no doubt resulting in a large part of the $1 billion (and counting) owed by the Korean maker. “Claim 19” of patent 7469381, which covers that feature, was invalidated by the USPTO on two counts, both of which were cases of prior art that allegedly existed before Cupertino claimed them. Either one could be enough reason to throw out that part of the patent, according to FOSS Patents, provided that the USPTO’s ruling stands up. Either way, Samsung has already brought the new information to Judge Koh’s attention — which might bring about some new action very soon.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Apple, Samsung

USPTO has ‘tentatively’ invalidated Apple’s key rubber-banding patent originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Oct 2012 06:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In the latest scuffle between Apple and Samsung, a Tokyo court has ruled that the iPhone 4 and 4S do not infringe on two of Sammy’s patents. According to The Asahi Shimbun, a decision on September 14th found Apple had not violated a patent related to app downloads, as Samsung’s method is different. A dispute regarding flight / airplane mode also went in Cupertino‘s favor on October 11th, because the technology in question was regarded by the court as incremental. Only one case against Apple remains undecided in Japan — for a patent on using “homescreen space” — but, as usual, don’t expect that to be the last chapter in the neverending story.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Apple, Samsung

Japan court rules Apple did not infringe two Samsung patents originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Oct 2012 07:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple’s looking into some very intriguing things in a couple of new patent applications spotted by AppleInsider today, including sonar-style echolocation for passive proximity detection, and a text-to-speech engine that takes contextual cues about what it’s reading and adds personality to the computer-generated voices it employs. Both of these could result in big changes in the daily use of mobile devices.

Speaking In A Voice You Know

The first patent, called “Voice assignment for text-t0-speech output,” can alter text-to-speech (TTS) profiles based on metadata gleaned from content found on a user’s phone or device. So, for instance, if it’s reading back an email from a contact it can identify as male, 25 and living in the U.K., then the voice it produces to read said email will represent those attributes in accent and tone.

The patent describes using actual recorded audio from an off-site database where possible to achieve as natural a reading as possible, and there’s even a provision whereby, with permission from those involved, an iPhone could record speech from contacts on phone calls and use that technique to produce a reasonable facsimile of their voice for TTS use. That way, if you were to have Siri read you an incoming iMessage, you’d hear it in the voice of the sender.

It’s an interesting play, and one that could encourage greater adoption of TTS services. Stilted, inhuman intonation and pronunciation is frequently cited as one of the major failings of computer-generated speech, and hardly helps promote a sense of identification between a user and their device. That kind of bond is important in driving further use of said services, which is in turn useful to Apple because it clearly seems to want to make Siri a go-to resource for iPhone and iPad users in all areas of discovery and potentially even search.

Guided By Voices

The other patent application found today details a sound-based echolocation system that lets a device determine its distance from other objects. So a mic could be used to take in ambient sound and determine its relative position, also noting when an object gets closer or farther away. This could be used in place of an ambient light sensor to determine an iPhone’s proximity to a user’s face, for instance, and the iPhone could even send out its own audio signal or ping, when ambient sound isn’t detectable, to determine where it is relative to another surface. As we’ve seen with inventions like the jaja pressure-sensitive stylus, this noise need not be audible to the human ear to be picked up by Apple’s mobile hardware.

There’s a clear benefit for Apple from this tech: it potentially allows the elimination of components like the ambient light sensor it removed from the fifth-generation iPod touch. Apple SVP Phil Schiller reportedly responded to a customer email saying the part was left out of the iPod touch because its chassis is “just too thin.” Further reductions in the iPhone’s thickness could necessitate a similar move, in which case the three microphones currently found in Apple’s smartphone could prove a suitable replacement, should the tech described in this new patent application actually function effectively.

One of the greatest benefits of 3D printing technology – the ability to make replacements or parts for household objects like toys, utensils and gadgets – may be denied to US citizens thanks to the granting of a sweeping patent that prevents the printing of unauthorised 3D designs. It has all the makings of the much-maligned digital rights management (DRM) system that prevented copying of Apple iTunes tracks – until it was abandoned as a no-hoper in 2009. More »