Apple's new wearable technology patent applications

Apple is about to make a big announcement today about their next big product, after a gap of four years. As usual, presumably, they will announce any totally new product at the end, with "One more thing...". The Toronto Star among others speculates as the faithful wait.

There is a lot of speculation that it might be a wearable device, an iWatch. Not sure what they will call it -- there is already US85703706, a filing for that word as a trademark registration for class 38, telecommunication services by OMG Electronics -- though, fatally perhaps, not for devices worn on wrists. Thanks to Minesoft's tmquest for that information.

I've checked for any US patents filed by Apple since 2013 that mention the word "wearable" (anywhere in the text). There are an amazing number published in just 2014, over fifty. None have "wearable" in the title.

These include Configurable buttons for electronic devices, published 28 August. This from a quick look is the most obviously relevant. A couple of its drawings are given below.

And what about their Bi-stable spring with flexible display, published in February 2013. It doesn't sound promising, but the drawings are interesting. Here is the main drawing.

I did find it independently, but that one was well covered at the time, quite rightly in my opinion, by sites such as an Appleinsider posting.

Google's Android Wear wristwatch

Gizmag has a story, Google unveils the Android Wear platform: Google Now on your wrist. There is a Google official blog post from the 18 March about their new smart watch, Android Wear. It asks for apps to be developed for the watch. Here's one of that post's two videos, showing individuals enjoying using the watch to get information.

So it's not just Google Glass (which I posted about in May 2013). Others have mentioned the patents, but I've done my own research to identify four relevant patents owned by Google.

First there was an Israeli invention, by Modu, which dates as far back as 2005. In 2011 Google purchased their patent portfolio for $4.9 million, which explains why the owner of the rights is given as Google in their Wireless telecommunication device and uses thereof.

The next three are all by inventors Gossweiler and Miller. In 2011 there was applied for what was granted, in October 2012, Smart watch including flip-up display. Here are a couple of its drawings.

Next to be granted US protection, in June 2013, is Smart-watch with user interface features. Here is its main drawing.

Then in January 2014, but originally applied for in 2008, is Gesture-based small device input. The patent makes interesting reading with its talk of a virtual mouse pad. Below is its main drawing.

And here is another drawing from the same.

Time will tell (excuse the pun) on how well this device will sell.

Google Maps and a patent challenge

Microsoft have lost the first round in a fight over software used in Google Maps to locate businesses etc. on the maps. A patent explains a method of storing map data on a server, and attaching it to other data, and making it accessible by client devices.

They own a European patent, Computer system for identifying local resources and method therefor, which dates back to 1995 when Sean Phelan of London, UK filed a World Patent application. There is also an American patent for the technology, US 6240360. Below is an image from the patent specification.

The European patent in question is really a bundle of national patents. Following grant by the European Patent Office in Munich, there is an opposition period, when the patent, covering all EU countries, can be challenged in a single legal procedure. If it survives that, or is not challenged, it can only be stopped by attacking the patent in each national court. That would mean, if successful, that the patent would fail for that country (only). In this instance, the attack was in Germany.

Michael Filtz reported, 5 March, on the case in the German Federal Court, where it was ruled that Google and Motorola had not infringed the patent, as that was found invalid for lack of inventive step. His post is titled Microsoft loses mapping patent tussle in German fight with Google and Motorola.

Microsoft has already said it will appeal. The patent in question, EP845124, is due to expire in August 2016 anyway, 20 years after application at the Munich office, as that is the normal maximum term.

There is an interesting article on Sean Phelan's career.

WhatsApp and patents

Facebook has just announced it is taking over WhatsApp Inc. for $19 billion, $4 billion in cash and the rest in shares. WhatsApp is a very popular app which means you avoid paying text fees on your smart phone: it uses the Internet to relay the messages, which includes attached images. It costs just $1 to subscribe to, although there is a free option.

The valuation sounds incredible, yet Facebook founder Mark Zuckenberg apparently thinks he has a bargain. Facebook is declining on PC platforms, so it makes sense to want to migrate to phones.

WhatsApp was launched in 2009 by ex-Yahoo employees Jan Koum and Brian Acton. They wanted to make it the biggest cross-platform messaging service in the world. It has also been described as the biggest social network you'd never heard of (sure, I'd never heard of it, but then I'm the wrong generation). It does to SMS (text and its attachments) what Skype did to international calls.

The company claims that over 450 million use it every month, with 1 million new subscribers a day. The software it uses is described in a US patent application published in November 2012 in the names of Koum and Acton, Multimedia transcoding method and system for mobile devices. It has not yet been granted patent protection (to me, making the valuation by Facebook all the more extraordinary). Below are two of the drawing pages.

The registration in 2011 of WhatsApp as a US trade mark is certainly valuable, though.

There may be trouble ahead, though. Two companies have taken WhatsApp to court, alleging infringement of US patents.

In October 2012 Intercarrier Communications LLC alleged patent infringement of Inter-carrier messaging service providing phone number only experience, illustrated below.

In October 2013 Israeli company Triplay alleged patent infringement of Messaging system and method, illustrated below.

There is an interesting Wikipedia article on WhatsApp.

Amazon and its inventions

I have just been reading an entertaining, yet chilling account of Amazon's drive for global dominance of e-retailing in the New Yorker article Cheap words: Amazon is good for customers, but is it good for books ? by George Packer. The point is that customers may benefit from good prices, but everyone else loses.

Packer sets out a vision of a company that only sees books (or anything else) as commodities, which it sells as cheaply as possible in order to obtain data on potential customers for other products. This was true as far back as 1995, judging from a reported conversation with Jeff Bezos at a book fair. In fact books now only make up 7% of its sales.

Central to Amazon;s appetite for providing and searching through data, and cutting costs, is of course software. In the USA (but not Europe) software is patentable. This means that an entire approach is blocked for the term of a patent (currently a maximum of 20 years), unlike copyright, which is meant to block deliberate copying but allows fresh code to be written that would do the same thing.

An early example of this is the one click ordering system. The heart of this is in a patent filed in 1997, the Method and system for placing a purchase order via a communications network. One of the illustration pages is given below.

By remembering data about the purchaser, the patent argues, sensitive information is not made liable for interception., It also makes it more likely that the order will be completed, as many abandon an order if it is complicated to place the order.

When Barnes and Noble tried to use a system that worked much the same way in the Christmas season of 1999 they were taken to court, and there was an undisclosed settlement in 2002.

Amazon is responsible for about 1400 granted US patents and over 40 Design Patents, mostly to do with its Kindle® e-readers. Newly published US patent applications and grants can be viewed by using the Latest Patents website. The fact that so few applications are published in the company name suggests to me that they deliberately leave the name off those publications (which they are perfectly entitled to do under US law), showing the danger of relying on patent information if you are not aware of how the system works.

So far the company doesn't seem to be publishing patent specifications on the suggested drones for individualised delivery of packages.

Amazon's patents include Presenting alternative shopping options, where the illustration shown below includes determining the profitability of options.

The technology behind the Kindle® reader is from a patent filed in 2006, the Handheld electronic book reader device having dual displays, with the dual display idea having later been abandoned. There have been at least five Design Patents for the look. Those with the title "Electronic media reader" or "Touch-screen user interface" are listed here.

Those US patent specifications by Amazon incorporating in their title "customer(s)", "fulfillment" or "merchant(s)", the name Amazon gives to the companies providing product, are listed here. If you can get through the language some at least make interesting reading.

Facebook and social networking inventions

Facebook has published numerous software patent specifications about social networking. Here are a few that show the way the company's mind works.

At the time of writing, there are 108 US patent applications published in the name of Facebook that mention "social network[ing, etc.]" in the title or summary. The software code is not required, only algorithms or other information explaining how the software works. This means that the novice has some chance of understanding the point behind it.

Some may sound a bit spooky, or intrusive. Here are a few. Some have already been published as B, granted patents, in which case I link to that B rather than the A document. Grant does not necessarily mean that the invention has been incorporated into the way Facebook works.

Promoting participation of low-activity users in social networking system

Methods and systems for tracking of user interactions with content in social networks

Crowdsourced advertisements sponsored by advertisers in a social networking environment

Providing relevant notifications based on common interests between friends in a social networking system

Suggesting connections to a user based on an expected value of the suggestion to the social networking system

Inferring user profile attributes from social information (as illustrated below)

Tracking effects of an ad impression on other activity in a social networking system

Predicting user responses to invitations in a social networking system based on keywords in user profiles

Leveraging information in a social network for inferential targeting of advertisements (as illustrated below)

I haven't used Facebook since, when trying to set up an account in order to see pictures that were only visible to account holders, it immediately published my date of birth on the Web even though I hadn't specifically authorised that to happen. I'm not keen to encourage identity theft, and also felt it was very intrusive. I closed the account right away. It is, of course, the kind of data they use to infer information about people to set up possible connections, to target advertisements and so on. Knowing your income would be useful, for example...

What about Inferring household income for users of a social networking system, anyone ?

Google's driverless cars

Google has made a name for itself in driverless cars, and this is a list of the 10 PCT or "World Patent" applications [now 15, 5 Aug. 2014] by them which mention "autonomous" driving (they do not use the term "driverless" in their summaries). Seven were published in 2013 alone.

These include Vehicle control based on perception uncertainty, and below are two drawings taken from the equivalent US patent application. The first shows the way the software determines what to do, the second shows what the vehicle might look like if equipped with the sensing device.

Google are not the only company interested in the technology. A rather crude listing of 150 PCT patent applications in the B60 class, which is "vehicles in general", which include autonomous or driverless in the summary is listed here.

I still find it incredible that we might relatively soon have self-driving cars. A very informative article by Robert Calem called Driverless cars on the rise from the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show discusses the issues involved with such cars.

I also enjoyed the New Yorker article by Burkhard Bilger, Auto Correct: Has the self-driving car at last arrived ?

Below is a short video showing the Google car in action.

Snapchat®, a patented app

Snapchat® is an app that has become very popular in just two years. It deletes any messages received on a mobile phone within 1 to 10 seconds (the sender controls the length) of its being viewed. This can include videos, images and texts. It does so by spotting that eye contact has occurred. after which the timer kicks in.

Its demographic was originally teenagers, and 80% of its usage is in the USA. It is handy for rude or obscene messages (“sexting”). “Selfies”, self-portraits, are also popular. So, good when teachers or other adults are around. The idea reminds me of the Mission Impossible TV series’ openings, where a tape recording self-destructed after instructions were heard.

The logo used by the company on the app is of a ghost with a face. Oddly, the US registered trade mark is of the ghost without a face – apparently they redesigned it later, in which case they should have applied for the variant. Here is registration 4573338, claimed to be first used in June 2011.

Here is the logo as commonly used.

The two inventors devised the app as a project at Stanford University where Spiegel was a product design major. When he explained it in April 2011 before his fellow students, they disliked the fact that the messages would be deleted. Nevertheless he persisted, and launched the app that September from his father’s living room. Venture capital was raised and the company worked on sorting out technical issues rather than branding, or trying to make money from it.

I am puzzled by the fact that the granted patent for the invention, Single mode media visual capture, was only applied for in August 2012. It should have been applied for before it was marketed,as patent applications are supposed to cover new concepts. It was swiftly granted, in April 2013. It is one of the rare apps that to be patented. Here are two of the drawing pages from the patent.

In November 2013 Facebook’s offer of $3 billion for the company was rejected. As the company apparently has no revenue this is brave, and makes me wonder about conditions imposed by the backers -- it seems that they did not insist that a good offer must be accepted.

Problems are that an app called SnapHack has appeared which enables the recipients to store Snapchat messages, while Forbes magazine claims that it is not too difficult to actually retrieve supposedly deleted messages. In addition, a fellow ex-student has claimed that they took the idea from him and has filed a lawsuit, as explained by an interesting article by TechCrunch.