• Twitter's Loren Brichter aims for patent on pull-to-refresh
    6 replies, posted
[quote] Tweetie developer Loren Brichter, now with Twitter, has a US patent application in review for the pull-to-refresh gesture common in many touchscreen apps, reports note. To get around the interface limitations of some devices, many apps -- such as the Facebook iOS app, or Twitter clients -- will let users "drag" a portion of the interface down to force a feed refresh. Some apps use the same gesture to trigger different commands. If granted, Brichter's application would cover any app with a similar gesture/command system, regardless of the command it triggered. The filing was first made on April 8th, just a day before Brichter announced that his former company, atebits, was being acquired by Twitter. It's unknown if Twitter can claim any rights to the patent, but the company's official iOS app also relies on pull-to-refresh. The application could be defeated by prior art. Apps have been using the gesture for some time, and could predate Brichter's work. [/quote] Read more: [url]http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/12/03/27/tech.already.used.in.many.third.party.titles/#ixzz1qTmLTOIU[/url] Fuck off twitter.
I remember back when companies actually developed new products for profit [editline]28th March 2012[/editline] But patent wars are fun too
How do you patent an action?
[QUOTE=Valdor;35339595]But patent wars are fun too[/QUOTE] Yeah, for the lawyers who get rich with bullshit legal tactics.
[QUOTE=A B.A. Survivor;35339605]How do you patent an action?[/QUOTE] there was a time when that was a good question
[h2]Innovation[/h2]
If they came up with the idea first, the touch gesture is valid and can be patented. It would be inconsistent to accept Apple's "drag to unlock" gesture but not accept this "pull down to reload" gesture.
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