Microsoft Files Patent for Apple's iPad Page Turn

Its not fair that a company can just sit back and patent as many potential technologies that they want, without needing to deveop a product that utilizes that technology. They can just sit back and demand royalties from companies who actually do use that patented technology.

I'm pretty sure that prior art + obviousness would make that patent invalid: neither MS nor Apple were the first to do a page turning animation, and "use your finger to turn a page" is hardly an invention.

Oh snap!

The patent system is out of control. I'm not blaming MS for doing this, but I don't think such trivial things should be able to be patented.

microsoft is looking to get some money to pay of NTP for their lawsuit..

microsoft is looking to get some money to pay of NTP for their lawsuit..

You should not be able to patent virtualized real work behavior. They alread gt away with softphones, next is page turning of a virtual book?Idiotic.

As much as I like seeing Macintosh getting owned as the next guy here, no.
Microsoft, just no.

@abcd1211: It is completely fair. A patent is merely an exclusive right to and invention for the public disclosure of said invention. An invention does not constitute a physical creation but merely can be imagined and documented. These are as defined by US law which governs said parties in this matter.

NOW, on the other hand... this problem here exists in that the invention must be new, non-obvious and useful (subjective). For MS to argue that a digital book page turn is new could be debated but them to argue that it is "non-obvious" would be ludicrous. It would be like me asking for a patent on video games in which digitally represented cars in the games make sounds that mimic real cars.

IF this becomes a blow up lawsuit of some sorts, I could see this paving the way to basically say that a digital representation of anything that occurs in reality is not patentable. If two apps exists that show a nature scene and one has a tree fall down periodically, is that then patentable and enforceable if the competing application shows a tree fall down? I mean, we can really see how that would be ridiculous.

HOWEVER, on the other hand, I am in full support of allowing patents on the PROCESS, not the representation. The process being more stringent. IF they managed to come up with a unique way of making it happen as opposed to just the visual representation, they should go for it.

I'm not an Apple fan, this is true, and MS is how I make my livelihood (VB/c# programmer) but seriously MS... a patent on turning a page?

The patent system is a lawyers' playground primarily serving the purpose of blocking innovation or extracting money after the event. At the same time big corporations seem to flout the system in the expectation that they can cow the rights owners through sheer power or via brilliant legal minds that can split hairs sufficiently to steal an idea.

It started off well enough -- so that new technologies should be made public (as in "patently obvious") particularly where they had relevance to the military interests of the nation (that being England).

In exchange for publishing an idea so that it could be disseminated to the advantage of the nation, the originator was awarded exclusive rights (for a limited period) that he could license for a fee to those who wanted to adopt it.

The brilliance of the system was that by giving a financial value to an idea beyond its actual realisation as (say) a machine that was a marketable product, the originator was able to attract capital to develop the idea and collaborate with others without risking losing control of the invention.

...to be clear... let me add that I do not extend my views on one company producing an identical visual representation of another. If Apple were to say put out an office app that is nearly or completely identical to the visual display of MS Office, that would not fall under the "protections" I expressed no matter how different the "process" behind the scenes worked.

how can you patent an animation? this is ridiculous.

I'm going to go down to the patent office and file a patent on breathing.

Really, I mean Really, so yeah, you virtually flip the page, how is this even near a patent Idea! I am going to patent my sock folding technique, hey its also and Idea!

You guys know if Apple had been the ones to hold the patent first, and MS came up with a tablet that had a "page turning" animation, then Apple would be 100% full bore lawsuit mode. And SUN's former CEO said, patents are more defensive in nature in that you can always pull them up and protect yourself from a rivals lawsuit. This is why companies patent everything they can possible write down regardless of the ridiculousness of it. Better to have a mountain of patents and not have to use them, then to have a great product and your competitor try to use their patents to squash you.

That's a great point... Too bad no one told Ramubs.

Thank God, patent laws in most countries aren't as ridiculous as in USA... =/

I am thinking about patenting a method by which an organism repeatetly expands and contracts a tissue bag thereby facilitating the intake of oxygen end expultion of CO2.
Does anyone know if Micro$oft has already a patent on this ?


:-)

Agreed, MS is a copycat monopolist in coherent with the government in it's OS development, NSA approved should be on every copy of their OS.

big, greedy corporations will be big, greedy corporations.

I'm going to go ahead and apply for a patent for physical page turning.

One or more physical pages are stacked in front of a user. A page-turning gesture directed at the top page is recognized. Responsive to such recognition, the physical page is then turned. The physical page turn actively follows the page-turning gesture. The physical page turn curls a lifted portion of the page to pregressively reveal a back side of the page while progressively revealing a front side of a subsequent page. A page-flipping gesture can quickly flips two or more pages or a stack of pages at the user's choosing.

Seriously though, when will this ridiculousness end?

Hey Microsoft, I got a patent application right here!

One or more Microsoft executives are recognized. Responsive to such recognition, a person directs a finger gesture to a Microsoft executive. A single finger-flipping gesture may quickly flip off two or more executives simultaneously.

This is where it all starts...patenting everything that is. Next thing we find out is that the "like" and "dislike" buttons were patented some years ago.

Its not just the animation. its the concept of the recognition of the movement etc...
did you mean that having a ball moving in a mouse is not a good patent?
did you mean that a touch screen is a bad patent? (recognizing where a person hit a screen... ridiculous!)
an LCD screen... having a set of RGB tiny leds displaying a picture, not a patent too.
Ferrari has also patented their red color, which cannot be used by anybody else in the world!

So this MS patent is not ridiculous. Specially when you spent some $$$ in R&D to create a good human/machine interaction.

"The virtual page turn curls a lifted portion of the page to progressively reveal a back side of the page while progressively revealing a front side of a subsequent page"

This is the "non-Obvious" portion that allows the patent to be registered and Obvious Page turn Could simply have been an arrow going from page 1 to 2...

It doesn't matter what is described -- only what is claimed.

System 7 Desk Accesories

I hear patent trolls in the distance... :-)

Non-obvious my ass.

And I suppose that developing multi-touch gestures for a hardware designed to have multi-touch support wasn't obvious? The whole system is ridiculous.

GUI ideas should NOT be patentable, and neither should control method ideas.

Let's change history a little:
"How come all 3D games have horrible camera controls?"
"Nintendo patented everything they did in Ocarina of Time."

I patent all law of physics! Now everyone should pay me for everything they do: breath, shit or just inventing and patenting bullshit! Everything that involves physics and that's about anything!

Wow! This sux!