[MichaelApproved]

I think these are different, though I don't necessarily think it deserves a patent.

In real life, slide to unlock pushes a bar in place to prevent the door from swinging open. You slide to unlock, so the bar is moved away from blocking the door.

"On the computer", it's making sure that you deliberately intended to use the device and it's not an accidental "pocket dialed" motion.

These are similar motions addressing different problems. In the physical world, you slide the bar into place to allow the bar to work for you. On the computer, you slide to express a deliberate intention.

Anyway, deserving of a patent or not, these seem like different mechanisms.

[geon]

My last laptop had a spring loaded latch you would have to slide to the side to open the lid. You didn't use it to lock the lid, and it's purpose was to ensure you actually intended the lid to open.

Just like the iphone.

[gambiter]

"Just like the iphone."

If it was 'just like' the iPhone, you wouldn't have to explain the physical mechanism.

[veidr]

He didn't have to. "My last laptop had a latch you had to slide to open," would have sufficed.

It is just like the iPhone. The patent is as absurd as would be 'rotate the door handle to enable the door to open (on a computer)' or 'toggle the light switch from the bottom position to the top position to turn on the lights (on a computer)' or 'slide the slider one way to increase the volume, and the other way to decrease the volume (on a computer)' or 'push the brake pedal to apply the braking mechanism (on a computer)'... etc^3

[mikeash]

They could have just said, "My computer had latch that worked just like the iPhone's slider." And then silly people would come along to argue about the missing details. Can't win either way!

[geon]

> you wouldn't have to explain the physical mechanism.

I was emphasizing how it is just like the iphone. The iphone lockscreen is "springloaded" too. It pops right back when you let go of it.

[verandaguy]

I think what's meant by that is, that the purpose is the same as that of the "slide to unlock" mechanism on the iPhone, rather than the implementation; i.e., both exist to make sure that the device isn't activated accidentally or unintentionally.

[exodust]

That argument could be applied to any digital concept that has a real life counterpart. "Window" for example, in the real world it's made of glass and keeps rain out. Does that mean the digital window is different enough to deserve a patent?

But more importantly, "slide to unlock" is essentially "swipe to unlock". The swipe zone is confined to a specific area, but it's still swiping. "Flicking" also works. Apple are trying to patent "swiping", which is ridiculous.

Just like "double click to unlock" would be equally absurd as a patent for unlocking a desktop PC. Changing the name to "double press to unlock" doesn't suddenly make it unique.

[dmd]

> Does that mean the digital window is different enough to deserve a patent?

That's an incredibly bad example. Besides sharing the same word (in English), there's almost zero similarity.

"Are computer mice and the kind that squeak different enough?"

[delinka]

Zero? Most glass windows are rectangular; digital windows are generally rectangular. Your view of the outside world is permitted by the glass window; your view of your application is permitted by the digital window.

[SixSigma]

your use of the words "most" and "generally" already cause problems.

Xeyes is not rectangular, Portholes are round. The window on my boiler permits views inside the boiler etc. etc.

[delinka]

I'm not sure why these words cause problems. Refuting the "zero" number does not require absolutes in the opposite direction.

[iopq]

You're making his case for him. A computer windowing system should be able to be patented even if real windows exist.

[jussij]

A computer windowing system does not model real windows, it models pieces of paper, spread across a desk.

On a desk cluttered with papers, you can see bits of some papers and others papers are hidden by other papers that are on top.

There is no way you should be able to patent such an obvious real world, real life experience, just because you were the first to take that real world experience and replicate it on a computer screen.

All you have done is modeled a real work experience.

[exodust]

No! A digital window is not a complex enough system. It would inevitably exist given the hardware allowance and capability to multi-task apps. It merely frames an application or any number of objects within the "parent window" which is your computer monitor.

Frames, boxes, panels, or "windows". A child could come up with the need for a digital version of a container if none existed. The name that catches on to describe that container is irrelevant.

In the digital world we need to be sensible about what would inevitably exist given the hardware allowance for such an obvious software feature. Slide to unlock is child's play.

[JustSomeNobody]

When I walk up to my grandmothers back screen porch, I have to slide the bar to unlock the door to enter. of course this presupposes that someone before me slid it closed. In the case of the iPhone, the phone itself performs the locking. I don't see it as so different.

[collyw]

I am sure I have seen spring loaded equivalent on gates, that will lock themselves.

[axman6]

This is all mostly irrelevant though, and all of this discussion involves ex post facto analysis. The test for patentability is would a person skilled in the art come to the same solution without an inventive step - is the claimed invention what someone familiar with the art of human computer interaction do without doing something new. I would argue that the answer is no: there are many well known mechanisms for unlocking an electronic device (a pin, a password, a fingerprint, an identifying card or dongle, and so on) - using an analog of something that exists in the physical world such as a latch is not what someone skilled in the art WOULD do, there is some invention in taking the physical and bring it into the digital.

[geon]

> a pin, a password, a fingerprint, an identifying card or dongle

Those are all examples of authentication. Not at all the purpose of the slide-to-open.

The earlier dumb-phones used to have a key-lock functionality where you would have to press a certain combination of keys in quick succession. Or just open a physical lid.

[axman6]

My primary point still stands - the test isn't whether physical analogs exist, it is whether someone WOULD be lead to reach the same solution to the problem. I'm not sure I agree that someone, at the time, would have been lead to the same solution when the existing art revolved around physical mechanisms such as buttons and switches, and did not involve interaction with the screen which the mechanisms has previously been in place to prevent.

[JustSomeNobody]

Designers/developers other than and including those at Apple have used skeuomorphism for this very reason. You want people to know where to drop files, you show them an image of a floppy or a folder. Want to print, click the printer icon. Want to unlock your phone, slide it unlocked.

Using physical analogs has LONG been common.

The other day I used ProComm (yeah, I know, right!?). To close the connection, I clicked the phone icon and it animated showing the phone being placed back on the hook.

[ljf]

Also, let's not forget that Apple were not the first phone company to have a touch screen device that used the swipe to unlock process. They were just the first to patent, and the other company went bust...

[axman6]

If this were true, then the patent is obviously invalid. But since this has never been the argument in court, I'm guessing your assertion mostly false. If you have proof that there was another company who had a product with this idea before the priority date of the patent, then I'd love to see it.

[snlacks]

You make a valid point, it is for a different purpose. I think many people aren't arguing the actual law, on Hacker News, I feel as if the commenters are expressing their expert opinions on what it should be. I'm not an expert, but I sure do have opinions. That purpose basically reduces to "on a computer, for computer reasons." If you put a bathroom slide lock on a chicken coop to keep the chickens from getting out, that's a different purpose, but it shouldn't be a new patent.

That being said, if you had to use a newly invented screw or slide to get that chicken coop mod to work, then that probably should be patentable. Similarly, on a phone, if you invented a new means of translating that motion into a slide, or other actual invention, than that probably should be valid. Using existing touch drivers to recognize an obvious real world motion, probably not.

[axman6]

You're looking at the process backwards. Just because latches exist does not mean that, at the time the patent was filed, it was obvious to use a latch analog to unlock a digital device. A person skilled in the art would NOT be lead directly to that solution, but one which is already know: a pin, password, fingerprint, keycard, heck even facial or voice recognition. The test is not "did latches already exist" but "is it obvious to use them in the method claimed, as the time of application", and I would strongly argue that it is not, without some evidence to support the contrary.

I say this as someone who has worked as a patent examiner and understand the law (not the US law exactly, but they're quite similar world wide).

[xorcist]

Does it matter, when there is so much prior art that is more relevant?

The first time I saw it was on the Neonode phone, several years prior to Apple's patent. They were Windows CE based if I remembers correctly, and very proud of their UI. You can probably still find movies on Youtube.

[mtgx]

That seems like a difference without a distinction to me.

You slide to unlock to open a door. You slide to unlock to open your phone (or rather the "door" blocking you from accessing the content in the phone). Seems quite similar to me.

[axman6]

In hindsight, yes, but the fact a solution is simple does not mean that it isn't inventive. There is the possibility of invention in the use of technology from one field in another unrelated field.

[MichaelGG]

If intention mattered, then couldn't you patent anythinga again, but with a new intention? I'd guess that many "on the computer" or "with the Internet" will have arguably different intentions.

[paulryanrogers]

A sliding door seems to be a perfect analogy. And they have existed long before Apple.