The on-going mobile patent wars gained momentum recently with the announcement from the Court of Appeal in The Hague that Samsung would face a ban on selling three Galaxy smartphone models in a number of European countries.
At Babel PR, we’ve been watching these new developments with interest. The ongoing entanglement of acquisitions and law suits affects both software and handset developers across the board. We’re observing a time of transition across the mobile industry in general, the main products of which now bear more resemblance to the output of the computing industry than their distant, mono-functional ‘brick’ ancestors.
Smartphone technology interfaces are still relatively immature, engendering a tide of new concepts and capabilities – and in its wake there has been something of an intellectual property ‘land-grab’. Companies are acting quickly to establish their place in the changing landscape, and arm up against competitors.
Apple’s recent patent case against Samsung is an interesting example, in light of the number of patent cases that Apple has already been involved in. For instance, Apple’s efforts to patent a one-finger swipe for the purposes of unlocking a device was invalidated in 2005, following a ruling that asserted a Neonode model already employed this function – indeed, it is an interface convention that many Smartphones have since have taken on.
Apple by no means holds the record for lawsuits brought against competitors, but it made us wonder the extent to which developers can really own the rights to gestures and methods of interfacing which seem intuitive and natural. Of course, it might be argued that such gestures only seem intuitive because the products which use them have been so popular. Therefore, we become accustomed to these gestures so that they feel like the natural – or, even – the only, way to operate a device.
Is this sort of issue exclusive to the esoteric technology development stratosphere, or does it have a bearing on the day to day activities of ordinary handset users?
As a consumer myself, I decided to get to grips with the content of the patent which Samsung has been shown to violate. EP2058868, as it’s more formally known, describes a feature used in photo gallery applications. When navigating to the extreme edge of a zoomed in image, the neighbouring image should come into view at a normal zoom ratio, rather than appearing to also have been zoomed in.
Photos from Apple’s patent papers can be viewed here: http://bit.ly/nrTFol
Familiarising myself with EP2058868, I was struck by two things:
Firstly, my own handset, which is manufactured by neither Apple nor Samsung, appeared to be in breach of EP2058868 – when I drag any particular photo to its extreme edge, neighbouring photos do not appear zoomed in. Has Apple simply overlooked the manufacturer of my handset or are there a series of broader reasons to focus on Samsung?
Secondly, as a consumer, I was (perhaps naively) expecting EP2058868 and other mobile phone patents to describe the more technical intricacies of circuitry and coding. Instead, I was surprised at how comprehensible the most fought over ideas are – they are about the general appearance of a device, the design of a dashboard or the way the user places their fingers to elicit a response. Far from being issues over the average consumer’s head, it seems to me that these are the very interaction conventions that consumers are able to vote for by adopting the devices that employ intuitive gestures, and rejecting those which don’t.
While it may not be relevant to all the patent cases out there, I think this does raise an interesting issue for those patents which deal with the way users interact with applications:
If consumers adopt a gesture because it feels natural, to what extent can the mobile developer still ‘own’ that feature? Perhaps consumers pick up on the most intuitive features, for the very reason that the developers are actually able to influence what feels natural?
Consumers benefit considerably from standards, conventions and predictability in interfaces. Some countries have flirted with compulsory licensing or other techniques to encourage broader adoption of new standards and conventions. A patent on turning a tap to the right to open it is only useful if all the taps turn to the right.
This is not to deny that patents should be in place to protect innovation. It is rather to question whether the system which protects (and encourages) innovation, can also adapt to maintain the public interest in standardising those conventions which become part of the public psyche.
Post by Sophie Stammers
