Apple Patents Rotary iPhone
from the there's-no-app-for-prior-art? dept
theodp writes "It took almost five years, but Apple now has a patent for its Telephone Interface for a Portable Communication Device, which essentially uses an iPod click wheel to emulate an old-school rotary phone dialer. The nine listed inventors of the Rotary iPhone include Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Guess the USPTO couldn't find any prior art for using a wheel interface to spit out numbers and letters!"Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: iphone, patents, rotary phone
Companies: apple
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iPatent
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What about the patent for their laptop?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA
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Re: What about the patent for their laptop?
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It is actually pretty unique. I can't remember anyone doing it.
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Nice satire?
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This appears to be a positioning system, which would be a very unique interface for a digital phone.
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If the only distinction is "digital" it's frakin' obvious. I can imagine six digital things a day.
Reject it, Patrick N. Edouard. And grow a damn pair while you're at it.
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Go!
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For an encore, I imagined them all again, on the Internet.
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It hasn't been done as mechanical device, and I don't remember seeing anything like it in a digital device. "on a digital device" is only an observation, not a requirement.
It is actually a very interesting and ingenious use of a very limited input system. Maybe it has been done before, but I don't remember seeing it.
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Plus, I've seen a system like this in quite a few things. Mass Effect for example. It's not for numbers, but it's definitely a rotary stile interface for selecting options.
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This ain't ingenious, Jack.
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Re: doesn't justify a patent
* Develop a theory for representing sound waves in mathematical form that can be freely converted to different representations, e.g. acoustic, electrical—not patentable.
* Build a machine that makes use of that theory—patentable.
* Build an improvement on the original machine that makes use of that theory—patentable.
* Take an old idea from analog mechanical devices and implement it on digital virtual ones—even more patentable.
So the more fundamental and far-reaching your innovation is, the less patentable it is.
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Who patented displaying a keyboard on a touch panel? Same thing!
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_menu
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Patent for "Magic"
Seriously, if this is something that gets a patent, the patent office and defenders have lost all their moral standing.
So let me see if I understand how this works, take something that already is common place, do it on the iPhone and get a patent? So does that mean if I wipe my a** with an iPhone, I can get a patent on that now as well? Hell, I'm pretty sure their isn't any publicly available prior-art to me wiping my a** so I might even have a better patent application ...
Freedom
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Perfect fit
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Re: Perfect fit
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http://www.germancarforum.com/q7/2951-audi-q7-mmi-navigation-screen-shots.html
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Re:
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Still on At&t
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Monty Python Patent
In the second place, will someone, anyone, please teach the Patent Office the first principles of structured programming? I find that I have to reformat claim text in order to understand it. At any rate, the critical Claim 1 would seem to be substantially anticipated by the MAG monitor interface.
===============================================================
Claim 1, Patent 7,860,536, reformatted:
1. A method, comprising:
at a portable communication device
having a display and a click wheel:
detecting a first input on the click wheel;
in response to detecting the first input:
displaying a telephone user interface on the display,
including a current image of a rotary dial,
wherein the current image of the rotary dial
provides visual clues
as to the functionality of the click wheel
for a current mode of operation;
and entering a first mode of operation,
wherein, in the first mode of operation,
the current image of the rotary dial is a
first image of the rotary dial
including a plurality of icons
arranged proximate
to a periphery of the rotary dial,
the plurality of icons include numbers,
and
there is an absolute angular relationship
between
respective contact points on the click wheel
and
corresponding icon positions on
the first image of the rotary dial;
detecting a second input on the click wheel;
and in response to the second input,
entering a second mode of operation
distinct from the first mode of operation,
wherein, in the second mode of operation,
the current image of the rotary dial
is a second image of the rotary dial
including a different shading pattern
than the first image of the rotary dial.
=================================================================
In the third place, I chose, while skipping and knocking two coconuts together, to sing comic songs about patent examiners Patrick N. Edouard and Shantell Heiber, comparing their intelligence unfavorably to that of a South American Llama. The Patent Office would work much better if it were run by "J. Fred Llama and forty South American Llamas."
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RE: Monty Python Patent
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Apple should patent
Now that is unique and hasn't been done before, especially not in one and the same overpriced device.
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Android app...
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