From patent blogger Florian Mueller, describing Apple’s new patent for multitouch gestures on touchscreen devices:
This patent describes the solution at such a high level that it effectively lays an exclusive claim to the problem itself, and any solutions to it.
Roughly speaking, Apple seems to be claiming that if you use more than one finger to do something on a touchscreen, you’re infringing on their intellectual property. In a sense, I guess I don’t blame them. So what if Tom Cruise was doing the same thing with arm waving in Minority Report in 2002? If the law lets them get away with this, they’d be fools not to take advantage of it.
Of course, the law is an ass in this regard, but that’s our problem, not Apple’s. And I’m beginning to wonder if there’s any solution at all to this idiocy aside from doing away completely with patents for anything you can’t pick up and hold in your hands. One way or another, something really has to give here.
