I am contending that you can't patent a user interface you see in a sci-fi movie, which is what Apple did here. What they patented is no different from patenting the way the command module looks on the Enterprise. Do you think that Apple should be able to patent, say, the use of oval icons?
Disclaimer: I'm completely against patenting UI elements. I'm of the opinion that once they come into existence they're language and patenting language is anti-social behavior.
You disputed said references by claiming that other products copied Apple.
I pointed out that just because it was Apple who made these features popular, leading to other products copying them, doesn't mean that the features could not have been independently invented prior to Apple. I refer you to the original comment for the prior-art examples.
Since the patent itself cites prior art, obviously the patent isn't patenting the same thing as the prior art.
>All Apple did was jumble these same longstanding .... was at best modestly different from prior implementations
You have provided no evidence or reason to believe this. In fact, I've seen this claim hundreds of times, and never seen anyone even attempt to provide a defense for this assertion.
Yet the evidence at hand shows the opposite- the patent was reviewed for a significant period of time by the patent office. Further, this isn't Apple's rodeo. After the Microsoft loss, Apple has a great deal of incentive to make sure that their patents are solid.
So despite evidence to the contrary, you just repeatedly assert this position because it helps your ideological position. But we need more than mere assertion.
In fact, your assertion isn't really consistent with history. To make this obvious lets change the context. Imagine it is motorola being sued by Bell:
Graham demonstrated and patented the telephone, therefore phones are longstanding and the cellphone is just "modestly different from prior phones".
The iPhone doesn't have cameras three feet behind the screen taking photos of your fingers. But you would have us believe that a patent on using that method of touch interface means that apple didn't invent nothing for the iPhone.
You're relying on the ubiquity of copies of Apples devices to make an emotional appeal claiming these things were obvious.... yet this is post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Before 2007, Android was working on a blackberry ripoff, not a touch UI.
And your argument fundamentally misrepresents what patents are.
I've seen you mention this a couple of times now. I know you mean it to be ridiculous, but it's actually a true statement: once you have a telephone, and a radio, then the concept of a cellphone in itself is an obvious step. There are scads of patentable details in the implementation, but nothing to say that the concept of a cellphone itself should be protected. Perhaps you should find an alternative example?
> The iPhone doesn't have cameras three feet behind the screen taking photos of your fingers. But you would have us believe that a patent on using that method of touch interface
None of the prior art listed above claims anything to do with cameras.
So the question is this: Do you think that for the next 20 years Apple should be the only company with large rectangular multi-touch phones with minimal buttons, grid based icons, and pinch-to-zoom?
It should be easy for you, if you are correct, to simply state what is new and novel and patentworthy that Apple did, that is not covered by the prior art mentioned.
Look at the prior art in the patent itself, e.g.:
US5844547 May 9, 1995 Dec 1, 1998 Fujitsu Limited Apparatus for manipulating an object displayed on a display device by using a touch screen
US6567102 Nov 25, 2001 May 20, 2003 Compal Electronics Inc. Touch screen using pressure to control the zoom ratio
US20050168488 Jan 31, 2005 Combination tool that zooms in, zooms out, pans, rotates, draws, or manipulates during a drag
All Apple did was jumble these same longstanding into some arguably-new form, and, viola, they had a patent for something everybody was doing.
I doubt you really contend that, in late 2007, Apple invented scrolling and zooming with your fingers, or that you contend that Apple's implementation was substantially different (and both novel and useful) from those prior forms. If you don't contend either of those, then why, exactly, should Apple have a patent over their implementation, which was at best modestly different from prior implementations?