socialmedian: Apple Gets Their Multi-Touch Patent; Is Palm Screwed?

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Apple Gets Their Multi-Touch Patent; Is Palm Screwed? By jasongoldberg

dont touch! its mine - Apple secures patent! By nigelwalsh

Jan 27, 2009

You Can Touch This, @mchammer - Get this Gig By daynamarcum

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Source: Mashable!

Jan 27, 2009

Summary

The US Patent Office has signed, sealed, and delivered a late Christmas present to Apple. On January 20th, the powers that be awarded patent #7,479,949, titled Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics, to Apple. Essentially, Apple wins the war on their multi-touch technology and other copycats should be shaking in their boots.

The patent, which was originally filed on April 11, 2009, is a long detailed description of the technology, with the abstract reading:

“A computer-implemented method for use in conjunction with a computing device with a touch screen display comprises: detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display, applying one or more heuristics to the one or more finger contacts to determine a command for the device, and processing the command. The one or more heuristics comprise: a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command, a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger con

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