One. And one is worth a lot. In this case, the patent covers a way of making a phone’s buttons go from soft, responsive to hard-to-press. The patent doesn’t describe how the button works, but it does say “the application could be used in one or more of several applications, including as an electronic device which can be used with mobile devices to communicate.”
A good analogy for this would be putting a button on your computer to make a browser open a page, or a joystick on your TV to turn your video game on and off. What does it matter if you aren’t in the game you want to play at the time when you push that button? The patent covers such situations. The question, though, is whether you have to be in the game when you push it, and if so, by how much.
I asked Apple why it doesn’t want to talk about the patent. Apple, for its part, didn’t answer. But it is making one thing clear. Apple believes that it’s got the patent. It didn’t give more details, but says in its filing that it has a “well-known, legitimate and well established patent” covering the same approach it takes now.
In a sense, this is Apple’s patent. But on the other hand, Apple’s patent is so far from being the last word. There are a few patent filings Apple might like to talk about — and a few others that might be good topics to talk about.
For example, here’s Apple discussing another filing that it has, at least, and is probably related to the other Apple patent mentioned above. In it, Apple describes what it describes as a new input device that could be used as a keyboard that provides a touch screen in addition to a physical keyboard. That could actually have applications outside of gaming. And if Apple finds that useful for gaming, well, sure, it’s patenting it. But the question remains, why do we need to pay attention to it? If it were not important enough to patent, wouldn’t we have seen a different patent with the same basic concept two years ago?
Some other points I would like to make. Apple is making these filings and patents in response to the iPhone, not to be generic to the new iPhone. The patents cover a different design technique, another technique in different patents, and a feature on the iPhone in other patents. That’s all the patents Apple made under those circumstances. If other companies use the
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