Microsoft Applies For Page-Turn Animation Patent 293
eldavojohn writes "Ever seeking to out innovate their competition, Microsoft has applied for a patent on animating page flips in devices like the Nook or Kindle. The application summary reads, 'One or more pages are displayed on a touch display. A page-turning gesture directed to a displayed page is recognized. Responsive to such recognition, a virtual page turn is displayed on the touch display. The virtual page turn actively follows the page-turning gesture. The virtual page turn curls a lifted portion of the page to progressively reveal a back side of the page while progressively revealing a front side of a subsequent page. A lifted portion of the page is given an increased transparency that allows the back side of the page to be viewed through the front side of the page. A page-flipping gesture quickly flips two or more pages.' Maybe you've seen this before?"
Hurry up and someone patent.... (Score:5, Funny)
.... reading.....
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Hey, what does this Slashdot comment say? Can anyone help me determine this?
Maybe if I throw in a licensing fee?
Re:Hurry up and someone patent.... (Score:5, Funny)
To hell with reading. I'm going to see if I can patent ball scratching. Think about it - half the people in the world scratch their balls, even before they come out of the womb. Reading is just for the elite, who have had time, money, and coddling enough to learn to read. Scratching balls? I can sue people for patent infringement even before they are born! I'll be richer than Microsoft, Apple, Government Motors, and the United States Government combined!
Oh, for anyone who wonders - we have video from a sonogram that distinctly shows the kid scratching at his groin at around 7 months gestation. It's time we dragged that out and showed it to everyone again. LMAO
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You're too late, I already applied for the more generic "Method for applying manual repetitive friction generation as genital stimulus".
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Neither did Apple. I have old 80s-era games that use the same page-curl and flip animation to tell a story. It's prior art and can not be patented.
This reminds me of the story where some company tried to patent multiple screens/resolutions on a single desktop. A classic Commodore Amiga user drug his old 1985 machine into the courtroom and demonstrated that the idea existed as prior art, and therefore can not be patented.
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Don't you mean:
Method For Converting Character Sequences into Neurochemical Comprehension?
It's certainly a step up from "Method for Intrapersonal Communication via Sequences of Orally-Emitted Sound."
Prior art? (Score:4, Interesting)
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the only thing they bring to the table is "on a touch display".
Not even that. I've seen iPhone ebooks that do this.
Re:Prior art? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen that on a tactile touch display that even varies in thickness as a number of pages are turned and it is powered by the kinetic energy of the gesture.
Its called a god damn book.
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You mean like this [penny-arcade.com]?
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Yes, the Stanza reader had this in place before 2009.
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Um. It's iBooks on the iPad. Has pretty much exactly that feature. Word for word.
It's good to see Microsoft unseating Apple as the evil empire by deliberately forcing them into prior art litigation. Ugh.
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Sorry I actually read the article, the patent date is January 2009.
I knew the iPad, etc, had it, but I've seen this years ago. Hence my disbelief.
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Spot the prior art (Score:3, Informative)
My entry: Master of Magic, by Microprose software (currently rights are held by Atari, I think). c1994-ish? Showed page turning animations in a spell book when you clicked on next and prior pages, creating a virtual book. Sounds like what MS is trying to do here, so it might count.
Can anyone beat 1994? There must be earlier stuff than that..
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Myst 1993.
Re:Spot the prior art (Score:5, Informative)
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1986, GEOS for C64 :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(8-bit_operating_system) [wikipedia.org]
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A certain Uncle Fester Ballmer is desperately trying to retain his position, hence any patent imaginable will be claimed and a hyper inflated book valued placed against it in, to up the companies book value, in order to try to pump up the share price and thus protect Ballmer's position. The more desperate Ballmer becomes to maintain his position the more clumsy and self destructive will the "Beast of Redmond" become (all really rather lame and pitiful).
Re:Spot the prior art (Score:5, Informative)
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One or more pages are displayed on a touch display. A page-turning gesture directed to a displayed page is recognized. Responsive to such recognition, a virtual page turn is displayed on the touch display. The virtual page turn actively follows the page-turning gesture.
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That's not prior art to the actual patent described, which is about turning the page in response to a particular touch gesture. That the animation is being patented is eldavojohn's invention.
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I've seen this on Flash years ago as well as a Shockwave (Director)... the only thing they bring to the table is "on a touch display".
I've seen this in the openings of several Disney animation classics, which would start with books opening and turning pages. Admittedly, not much user interaction there, but the animation "curls a lifted portion of the page to progressively reveal a back side of the page while progressively revealing a front side of a subsequent page." OTOH, I don't recall ever seeing "A lifted portion of the page is given an increased transparency that allows the back side of the page to be viewed through the front side
OK, so what's the penalty for IP fraud? (Score:5, Interesting)
If IP theft is possible, then surely IP fraud must be? If I claimed to own any random houses I happened to see, and put them down as security on financial documents, this would be viewed dimly by the courts. This is that.
If patents secure intellectual 'property' then where's the aggressive penalty enforcement for intentional (or unintentional but negligent) misrepresentation of property rights? Given the money at issue, and their strain of their enforcement on the court system, these penalties ought to be severe, esp. for corporations. If anybody knows a government looking to increase revenue, then here's some.
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(The Microsoft Vista operating system [time.com] was, it is said, not a failure, but an intentional method of getting people to pay for two operating systems, by deliberately [pcmag.com] releasing an unfinished one.)
Really? I would not go that far, especially without evidence.
Re:Have all the knowledgeable people left Microsof (Score:5, Informative)
I'm guessing that most of the intelligent, technically knowledgeable people have left Microsoft. So now non-technical employees are pretending to run a technological company.
Filing for patents like this has absolutely nothing to do with technical people. What probably happened is something like:
1. Engineer designs cool interface with gestures and page animations
2. He shows his project manager neat interface
3. Project manager like it, sends it up the chain to see what higher ups think
4. VP over section likes the idea, sends it to legal (like everything else) to make sure it won't be a problem
5. Legal drone sees no prior patent filings for the interface idea. Sends idea to his boss.
6. Legal over-drone notes no existing patents and thus automatically files a patent for the interface idea.
7. ???
8. Profit!
The software patents filed by a company have little or no bearing on the quality of the engineers working there.
One indication that the smart people have left is when a company brings out a new version of software, and the big change is in the menus. Menu changes are something people who don't care about technology can do.
You [ubuntu.com] don't [launchpad.net] say? [hanschen.org].
(The Microsoft Vista operating system was, it is said, not a failure, but an intentional method of getting people to pay for two operating systems, by deliberately releasing an unfinished one.)
Said by somebody who almost certainly never even ran Vista. Vista's real problems were:
The way software patents work right now is every company is trying to get as many as possible. It's basically the Cold War all over again, except instead of nuclear weapons it's software patents. Microsoft is doing it for the same reasons Google, Apple, Palm, etc are: Mutual Assured Destruction.
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1) It took years for the hardware companies to stop making so many drivers that bluescreen XP or cause other problems (heck some still do), so it's no surprise if Vista gets crappy drivers. If Microsoft or anybody was expecting otherwise, they're stup
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I probably should have tried harder to get a job there back in the day, when being a MS employee was a path to personal financial success. Nowadays every couple of months I get a call from some child MS recruiter, who doesn't actually work for MS but for some Recruitment Process Outsourcing company, who hasn't read my resume, and who wants me to do some job that anybody who actually did read my resume would realize is a lousy match to my skill set. Not only that, he wants me to work for some other outsour
Yeah, That's New (Score:3, Interesting)
rather it is an example of (Score:2, Insightful)
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Patents can and do work other places in the world, just no in US
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You gotta be kidding. There have been Flash animations like this available for years. I guess this is an example of a patent process gone wrong.
What eBook reader were you playing Flash animations on?
One or more pages are displayed on a touch display. A page-turning gesture directed to a displayed page is recognized. Responsive to such recognition, a virtual page turn is displayed on the touch display. The virtual page turn actively follows the page-turning gesture. The virtual page turn curls a lifted portion of the page to progressively reveal a back side of the page while progressively revealing a front side of a subsequent page. A lifted portion of the page is given an increased transparency that allows the back side of the page to be viewed through the front side of the page. A page-flipping gesture quickly flips two or more pages.
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Companies like Microsoft hogging the patent means there's little chance the someone will slip up and fail to renew or take people to court over "small" offenses. A small company would hardly have the resources to find AND sue me for having a 10-year-old transition animation on a personal webpage, for instance.
It bothers me that smaller companies almost never pull this kind of anti-prior-art stunts, dealing a blow to the bigger, noisier fish who would be suing us in their sleep for stuff like the above. Mayb
Next Patent... (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft Fast Page Flip Lick Moistener (TM). It's for when you moisten your index or other page-flipping finger on your tongue to flip faster.
Maybe you should ask the right question: (Score:4, Informative)
The real question is, has anyone seen this before:
Claim 1. A digital reading device, comprising:
a first touch display region;
a second touch display region;
a logic subsystem operatively coupled to the first touch display region and the second touch display region; and
a data-holding subsystem holding instructions executable by the logic subsystem to:
display a back side of a first page on the first touch display region and a front side of a second page on the second touch display region;
recognize a page-turning gesture directed to an outer corner of the second page;
display, responsive to the page-turning gesture, a virtual page turn that actively follows the page-turning gesture, the virtual page turn curling a lifted portion of the second page to progressively reveal a back side of the second page while progressively revealing a front side of a third page and while progressively covering the back side of the first page;
recognize a page-flipping gesture directed along an outer edge of the second touch display region; and
display, responsive to advancement of the page-flipping gesture, a virtual page flip in which pages quickly flip from the second touch display region to the first touch display region.
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Who cares if we have seen it before, it is obvious as all get out.
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no, it's not.
Please explain to me how implementing that is obvious.
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Implementation is a different question. They're not protecting a particular implementation. That would be done with copyright.
With this, they're preventing anybody else from creating their own implementation of this.
Why software needs both patents AND copyrights remains a mystery.
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You answered your own mystery. Because a copyright doesn't protect from other people re-implementing your system and methods. The entire point of patents is to protect a way of doing things, whether that way is physical or virtual. You can argue that you don't think virtual things should get the same protection as physical things, but since patents and copyright do different things I don't see why you think the latter should immediately not apply.
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I seem to recall the other half of the patent deal being that the design of the patent is open for all to see. That's the benefit that society gets for enforcing the monopoly.
If software is to be patentable, it should not also be protected by copyright. One or the other (preferably a sanely-limited copyright).
Re:Maybe you should ask the right question: (Score:5, Insightful)
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All the physical books on my bookshelf. Making a computer mimic the real world is 100% obvious.
Tell me... when you turn a page in a physical book, does it turn transparent? 'Cause that's in the claims of this application. Frankly, none of my physical books include transparency, nor do they include the ability for me to turn groups of pages by dragging a finger down the edge.
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does it turn transparent?
Try reading a Bible, or any other book printed on thin paper.
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Yes, it does, since the ratio of light in front of the page vs behind the page changes, and thus the perception of how transparent it is also changes.
So, there's a static translucency that depends on the amount of light visible behind. That's different than transparency that changes responsive to a gesture.
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The patent is clearly trying to mimic turning a real page.
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Since when can you not turn a lot of pages by dragging your finger down the edge of the book? If the book has divets (many bibles and dictionaries do), it is much less random. But any book has this feature.
The transparency issue has already been commented on, so I won't go there.
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You can see through to the other side in many cases, so not transparent but translucent depending on the lighting.
Sooo, no variable transparency as you turn the page, just static transluency...
[Prior Art Busted]
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Claim 1. A digital reading device, comprising:
a first touch display region;
a second touch display region;
Two places/pieces to touch how amazing, totally novel, oh wait no not at all.
Hell they even showed off something just like this then canceled it. Bolting two touchpads together sure is not very novel.
a logic subsystem operatively coupled to the first touch display region and the second touch display region; and
Lawyer talk for app can read both spots.
Duh!
a data-holding subsystem holding instructions execu
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Claim 1. ....
recognize a page-flipping gesture directed along an outer edge of the second touch display region; and
display, responsive to advancement of the page-flipping gesture, a virtual page flip in which pages quickly flip from the second touch display region to the first touch display region. Either this means finishing the flip which would be another duh, or a quick flip of many pages, which might be something.
That's what it is. There are two page-flipping gestures in the claim. The second one is the quick-flip, which, as you admit, "might be something".
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There is prior art in actual paper books.
Adding the behavior/look/feel of a real book to the already existing features of a book simulator is pretty obvious to me.
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There is prior art in actual paper books.
Adding the behavior/look/feel of a real book to the already existing features of a book simulator is pretty obvious to me.
I've never seen an actual paper book where I can turn bunches of pages by sliding one finger down the edge, have you?
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Yes. I have.
Its called using your finger to turn a bunch of pages by sliding it across the edge.
The feature is enhanced in many bibles and dictionaries by indentations along the side that point specific points of interest. But it is a workable, if somewhat random, way of turning a bunch of pages at once in any book.
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But it is a workable, if somewhat random, way of turning a bunch of pages at once in any book.
So, you're saying that a precise way would be an improvement? The patent act expressly states that improvements are patentable.
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> Please explain to me how implementing that is obvious.
Apple "re-invented" this without looking at Microsoft's patent (or application).
It doesn't get any more obvious than that.
Re:Maybe you should ask the right question: (Score:4, Insightful)
They didn't patent the implementation (which is unpatentable, even if it's a lot of work), they patented the look and feel. And the look and feel of this feature has been around for many years, implemented by other people who had to work a lot harder on ancient 3D hardware to make this look good.
This patent is theft and fraud, pure and simple.
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Please explain to me how implementing that is obvious.
Implementing what? The page turn animation that's been around for years?
Or the "WITH TOUCH!!!!!" part of the patent, which is the default for any touchscreen that works as a mouse, where your finger clicks and drags the page just like a mouse would have.
If I run a 10 year old program that used the mouse to drag the page on my computer and plug in the 10 year old serial-port-mouse touchscreen monitor overlay, do I infringe the patent right away, or only
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Who cares if we have seen it before, it is obvious as all get out.
[Citation needed]
You can't claim something is obvious, after having read it, and more than a year after it was filed for. If it was so obvious, where was it then? Or where are the other pieces of prior art that could be combined in an obvious manner to do it? I mean, internal combustion engines are totally obvious, now, but to claim they were obvious back in the late 1800s is just sour grapes.
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Since it is a single claim, if you create the same thing minus one, you are indeed not infringing (at least not as far as that claim goes, as there may be more there).
I'm not sure by what you mean by "blue instead of black", though, as I don't see the mention of "black" anywhere in the wording of the claim.
Now, if you do it on just one screen, you should be in the clear.
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If you put it on a device that doesn't use a touch screen, but a mouse instead, you've (theoretically) circumvented the patent.
As a side effect, you've also explored a new avenue of input devices that you wouldn't have before.
similar to but not exactly (Score:2)
The one described in the article is a little fancier, but it sounds pretty much the same to me.
I'm sure slashdotters can find many many other examples which are even better than that.
doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Doesn't matter if it's been seen before, if you have a boatload of cash you need a boatload of defensive patents to keep the parasites who don't produce a thing off your back. Maybe companies like MS, that actually make stuff (whether you think their stuff is good or bad) and contribute, should just be auto-granted immunity from all that bullshit. As it is right now they have to think of and officially enumerate everything they don't want some worthless sleazeball non-company looking for a quick buck coming after them for.
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This isn't insightful because iBooks did this word for word. Go to an Apple store and play with iBooks on an iPad.
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I claim prior art (Score:3, Interesting)
I used that in a short story I wrote that was published in the 80s and it's on record both in the US and Canadian copyright systems.
MSFT can't patent what I already described in a public magazine.
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I used that in a short story I wrote that was published in the 80s and it's on record both in the US and Canadian copyright systems.
MSFT can't patent what I already described in a public magazine.
Dude, my Canadian girlfriend, who is totally real, remembers reading that story in the 80s. I asked her about it while I was totally boning her and she remembered it because both her and it are totally real. Next time she visits, I'll totally ask her what it was in!
stanza (Score:2)
Stanza on my iphone does this now, and i am sure the weren't the first.
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Really, your Iphone has 2 screens? Thats impressive!
RTFA
Software patents suck ass (Score:5, Funny)
I'd flip Microsoft a gesture but they've probably patented that too.
You mean like this!! (Score:5, Informative)
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Bingo!
That's the one I was looking for and I couldn't remember it. Your googling skills far out-weigh my own. Kudos to you.
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Click on the flyer [shoplocal.com]
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Pages in real books/magazines tend to do this, though there is an upper limit on translucency based on the ambient light, thickness of the paper and density of the pigment.
Applying real page behavior to a simulated page is pretty damn obvious.
Cessation of forward movement icon (Score:2, Redundant)
2. The icon in claim 1 mounted on a wooden post.
3. The icon in claim 2 mounted on a post or surface of any solid material.
4. The icon in claim 1 represented as a graphic painted or otherwise depicted on any flat surface.
5. The icon in claim 4 depicted on a surface of any shape
Prior Art (Score:4, Insightful)
Prior art from 32 years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
Old patent application... (Score:3, Insightful)
This was requested back during the Courier development years, and filed in January of 2009. So no, there was no prior application or device on the market that did this. And it damn sure isn't a copy of the iPad. This headline is sensationalism at it's best.
when are you starting the revolt, America? (Score:2, Insightful)
Cartoons did it in the 1930's (Score:2)
Cartoons showed this sort of thing back in the 1930s - I am sure that with a bit of digging we could find Mickey Mouse of Bugs Bunny flipping through the pages of a book.
And there are more than a few movies from the 1940s and 1950s that have their leading credits done with a visible hand turning pages.
There is nothing novel about this idea and it is something that is rather obvious even beyond the people who build computer graphical interfaces.
idiots (Score:2)
...well at least those of use who don't want to pay them will all be on the same page...
Thank god! (Score:3, Interesting)
Now I won't have to suffer through yet another pointless UI animation for an action that should be instant.
The trouble with patents (Score:2)
I personally haven't seen a good implementation of this, with all the features described. It's quite possible there isn't one. However, the concept of what they're doing is completely obvious. People have been making page-turning animations for virtual books for decades; most of them are less fancy than what Microsoft is doing because the graphics technology didn't exist. Somebody mentioned HyperCard, for example, which did have page-turning animation but not with multitouch gestures, not in 3-D, not wi
Yknow - (slight offtopic). (Score:2)
Sign of the decline? (Score:2)
The Door Into Summer (Score:3, Interesting)
Prior Art - Acorn Archimedes (Score:3, Interesting)
The Acorn Archimedes, circa 1984, had a image animation demo in the default software package which had a rendered page turning effect similar to the one described.
The ARM chip was the only processor in a desktop machine at the time powerful enough to do this by CPU alone. It would be years before an Intel chip would be powerful enough to do the same thing.
Prior Art is a load of crap in the US. (Score:3, Insightful)
On slashdot, we see many of these bogus patent articles as well as several patent troll litigation articles. On everyone we see the same tired arguments, hey, this was done since the 80's or that company implemented it long long before that! Sometimes we even hear, hey this company just bought the unused patent from a dead guy and doesn't even make a product, which invalidates the patent.
Well, non of that crap matters in the US. Seriously, how often do these patent trolls win? Almost always. That patent / legal system is so fucked up that actual law matters very little anymore.
This is one big reason that companies continue to pull out of the US.
Just do a quick Google search for "broken patent system" or "out of control patent system" and you will see this has been going on for years. Hell, back in 2000 folks were sure any time now there would be patent reform, yet the we are no closer to it.
It's time for you to get involved people. It's time to write to your representatives to demand reform. The US patent system is a drain on our economy and seriously hampers proper innovation. Something must be done soon, time is running out for the US. Well..at least IMO.
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Not novel, but has to be something that someone skilled in that field would not have been able to work out as a natural progression from an existing concept.
That makes this patent application based on something obvious.
Re:unique (Score:4, Interesting)
how does this differ from the ipad reader?
It differs by predating the iPad by over a year.
However, I don't think that it is prior art that will invalidate this patent. None of the examples that I have read here do so. Note to all: the headline is a lie! This is not about a simple transition animation.
What should invalidate this is that the whole idea is the most obvious use of a gesture interface ever! It looks like one of those simplistic examples they use in the introduction of a book on user interface design. Getting a patent is more than just being first to apply - you also have to have a non-obvious invention too. Unfortunately, the patent office is not known for understanding this.