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Microsoft patents virtual page-turning
July 11, 2010 | 2:56 pm
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By Chris Meadows
Here’s a weird bit of news. In a patent application filed in January, 2009, Microsoft laid claim to the idea of virtual page-turning, the way iBooks does it—creating a visual facsimile of a turning page, complete with transparency to see through to the words on the back of the page as you turn it.
Obviously, Microsoft originally intended to use this with its Courier tablet, which it recently axed. But could Microsoft go after Apple for infringement if this patent is granted?
I find it hard to believe that the patent would stand up to challenge, however. The iPhone e-book app Classics had a very similar interface (for all that the tiny size of the iPhone screen limited it to showing one page at a time).
(Found via GoRumors.)
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Comments:
The way I heard it the patent is for a gesture mechanism that includes riffling through pages at varying speeds depending on the speed of the gesture.
Given that there are many possible gestures and ways to implement them there is no way to know if this specific algorithm is or isn’t new until MS actually implements it in a product.
It is worth remembering that MS has been doing natural language input research (voice, vision, touch and gestures, etc) for two decades. And the US patent system is first-to-invent, not first-to-market.
Microsoft has filed for a patent, not been granted one. This is a very important distinction.
It is more than probable that interested third parties will present examples of prior works that invalidate the claim.