[Peaker]

> Nokia, Sony Ericcson, Palm and MS had touchscreen handhelds for years before the iPhone

They had enough physical buttons to make button unlock a viable option.

When you have only a touchscreen, the gestures available to you are taps and swipes. Taps easily happen accidentally, so some composition of swipes to unlock is the main obvious remaining option.

[josephlord]

If that is the case anyone can work around the patent for the cost of a hardware button.

Those saying this is a major critical feature (I'm not)that reduces hardware costs and improves product design are really making the case that it is a good patent, novel and useful.

[Peaker]

Then what you consider the invention here is really the touch screen and not the unlocking. Adding a physical button just for unlocking is less obvious than just using a gesture already available.

[josephlord]

A touchscreen is an invention but people managed to use touchscreens without slide to unlock for years. That is a separate and dependent invention.

Either the designers didn't think about this approach or thought it wasn't the best solution. If anyone produced such a solution or documented it the patent should be invalidated for prior art.

My initial reaction to the patent was probably that is a bit trivial but better than many that get granted and that there should be plenty of workarounds. The slide to unlock definitely seems obvious once you have seen it but I'm not sure it is so obvious before you have seen it (it's quite hard to unwind your mind to a state of unknowing). You certainly need to asking the right questions: how can we remove all the buttons, how do you prevent it waking too easily.

There is no need for touchscreen phones to go completely buttonless. That is a design choice not an essential feature to exist in the market.