Pinch to Zoom

Apple didn’t invent tablet computing or interactive screens on mobile devices; they just made them very consumer friendly with designs that are both pleasing to the eye as well as the hand and intuitively easy to use. They’ve figured out how to integrate their varying platforms, their cloud and retail services better than any other single hardware manufacturer. And they are not only the biggest corporation on earth – not bad for this “garage band” technology – but they just slammed another mega corporation – Korea’s Samsung – in the teeth with an August 24^th $1 billion judgment for patent infringement.

“People across the technology industry have expressed concerns about the future of innovation after a nine-person jury ruled in Apple’s favor last week in Federal District Court in San Jose, Calif. The jury said Samsung smartphone and tablet products violated a series of Apple patents protecting a number of designs and functions — including the rectangular shape and rounded edges of the iPhone and the pinch-to-zoom gesture that magnifies an image on Apple devices.” New York Times, August 26^th. While it only represents about 1.5% of Samsung’s gross revenues, the verdict caused a 7.5% drop in Samsung shares on the next full trading day following the court’s finding.

With a unanimous jury verdict, Apple has now asked the California court that issued the ruling to force the withdrawal of the following Samsung smart phones and tablets: Galaxy S 4G, Galaxy S2 AT&T, Galaxy S2, Galaxy S2 T-Mobile, Galaxy S2 Epic 4G, Galaxy S Showcase, Droid Charge and Galaxy Prevail. Clearly, given the nature and number of allegedly offending devices, Apple’s focus was on Smart Phones over tablets. Consumers won’t have to turn in their devices, but the underlying Google-powered Android operating system may have to be withdrawn and modified before it can be reissued… assuming Samsung loses its going-forward efforts to reverse this decision.

The battle that underlies this jury decision is the massive conflict between Apple and Google, one that is fought in the courts seemingly more than in the marketplace, where Google-powered smart phones outsell their Apple counterparts. Apple has a whole lot of “other” manufacturers to sue now – those that base their devices on the allegedly offending software – and what it is cannot accomplish in the open marketplace, perhaps it can accomplish in court. And of course, even if the ruling stands, Samsung and Google will simply change directions and continue. Those creating apps for the various Android platforms will obviously be forced to retool their products, an expense that many clearly have not anticipated.

The reactions have been obviously divided: “For Apple and executives at other companies in Silicon Valley that emphasize distinctive design, the verdict was a welcome validation of the effort they put into making and protecting technologies that create original user experiences. ‘It’s good for intellectual property, and good for firms that invest in design,’ said Chip Lutton Jr., vice president and general counsel of Nest, maker of a smart thermostat… Mr. Lutton was previously Apple’s chief intellectual property officer and was involved in filing the suit against Samsung.

“Bill Flora, creative director at a design firm in Seattle called Tectonic, acknowledged both positive and negative feelings about the verdict. On the one hand, it could force mobile companies to focus more on design rather than simply acting as copycats, said Mr. Flora, a former Microsoft designer who played a central role in creating the look of its Windows Phone software… But he said the decision could also create a ‘minefield’ for product designers, in which they are constantly second-guessing whether functions will step on someone else’s patents. Mr. Flora is concerned, for example, that Apple’s patent on the pinch-to-zoom function covers a gesture that now is so common that touch screen products without it would be like cars with square or triangular steering wheels… ‘It’s very much like a circular steering wheel,’ he said.” NY Times.

For innovators, the patent world is and has been a minefield even before the new U.S. “first to file” patent law came into existence. First, there are just too many damned patents. Second many have been issued without much in the way of novelty or originality, some so obvious and based on common sense (e.g., Amazon’s one-click online buying method, like pushing a floor-button in an elevator rather than driving the elevator to the floor), that it baffles me that a patent issued and has sustained challenge. Not stepping on someone’s patent, especially in the Web and mobile space, seems to me to rely on a miracle rather than “easily ascertained” existing patent filings. The cost of a solid patent search, which still does not guarantee a risk free path, has obviously skyrocketed.

As a post-script to this mega-victory in the United States, on August 31^st, a Japanese court took a different course favoring Korean Samsung over Apple by ruling that Samsung’s devices did not infringe on an Apple patent involved in synching mobile devices and computers. Complicated, huh? However you look at it, the global system of patents is a mess.

The constitutional power to issue patents was obviously intended to encourage and reward those willing to invent. But that was then, and today, the plethora of technologies and the ease with which patents are filed and issued has created the opposite result, scaring the crap out of a number of would-be tech entrepreneurs and raising the cost of securing and vetting a patent beyond the means of many “lowly” inventors. We truly need to lift the level for patent infringement to an entirely different level and perhaps consider compulsory licensing for those who have accidentally infringed. America lives on invention, and while creative spirit must be protected and rewarded, it cannot be at the expense of innovation itself.

I’m Peter Dekom, and where did I leave my BlackBerry this morning… yeah the one where I can now pinch to zoom?