Apple patent could be the death of the smart phone industry

Eric Bianchi
June 24, 2011
1 Comment

apple patentApple’s latest patent may deliver a death knell to other smart phone manufacturers in the US. It gives Apple ownership of the capacitive multi-touch interface. Experts in intellectual property say that it’s so far-reaching that the technology may be able to bully other manufacturers into submission so that they leave the US entirely.

It was filed around three-and-a-half years back and Apple said that patent 7,966,578 is for a “computer-implemented method, for use in conjunction with a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display, [that] comprises displaying a portion of page content, including a frame displaying a portion of frame content and also including other content of the page, on the touch screen display.”

The action will likely see Apple embark on a new round of lawsuits against anyone and everyone in the smart phone and tablet arena. If Samsung thought it was already bad, it’s about to get a whole lot worse.

Florian Mueller, an award-winning intellectual property activist with 25 years of software industry expertise who blogs at Foss Patents, said that, “This patent covers a kind of functionality without which it will be hard to build a competitive smartphone.”

She added, “Unless this patent becomes invalidated, it would allow Apple to stifle innovation and bully competitors.”

If true, that would be bad news for Google’s Android system that has built up a stellar network of manufacturers carrying their software in the United States. Good news though is that patent infringement will reportedly be difficult to enforce unless the technology is implemented in its entirety.

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Tags: Apple, Article, smart phones
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