Multi touch and Pinch to zoom was demonstrated by Jefferson Han¹ on a TED conference before the release of the iPhone.

¹: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Han

Although the Han ted talk is from 2006, before the iPhone but after the patent (2005).

The oldest multitouch device I know is the MERL Diamond Touch table (2001) which clearly predates everything Apple did. I am unsure whether or not somebody had implemented Pinch&Zoom on it before 2005.

In 2007 I worked on a Multitouch Table project as a student (http://digitable.imag.fr/). We built our own FTIR table and implemented a basic interface. We used Pinch&Zoom; I implemented it myself and I can assure you I had never seen an iPhone before. It is so obvious that when you include it in an interface you do not have to explain it to the users, they will try it naturally. If anybody using a multitouch interface tries that within 10 minutes, how can it be patented?

I wonder when Microsoft started to use it internally, too. They already had a working prototype for Surface in 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEiFhD-DIlA

Patents cover inventions of methods and processes to accomplish something-- implementations, not the idea or the feature.

Thus pinch-to-zoom as Jeff Han demonstrated it, using cameras to take pictures of your hands is not the same thing as apple doing it using software to turn noisy amorphous blobs into finger points on a capacitive touch screen.

Other people can implement pinch-to-zoom because pinch-to-zoom cannot be patented.

Both Apple and Jeff Han could have patents on their very different implementations of this same feature.

Unfortunately people really seem to believe that patents cover features, and I think this is due to the deliberate spin put on the discussions by anti-patent people.

If you disagree, try reading the pinch-to-zoom patent itself.

Direct link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac0E6deG4AU#t=2m50

Patents cover inventions of methods and processes to accomplish something-- implementations, not the idea or the feature.

Thus pinch-to-zoom as Jeff demonstrated it, using cameras to take pictures of your hands is not the same thing as apple doing it using software to turn noisy amorphous blobs into finger points on a capacitive touch screen.

Other people can implement pinch-to-zoom because pinch-to-zoom cannot be patented.

Both Apple and Jeff Han could have patents on their very different implementations of this same feature.

Unfortunately people really seem to believe that patents cover features, and I think this is due to the deliberate spin put on the discussions by anti-patent people.

If you disagree, try reading the pinch-to-zoom patent itself.

Minority Report had the concept, but with two hands. Something new would be the notifications stolen from android. But in any case, it's a patent and companies are required to protect their innovation!