That little buzz feels like a click on my Air's trackpad and like a tap on my iPhone's keyboard. Any other vibration thingy I came across feels like a vibration thingy, not like a click, not a tap.
As nobody else seems to care or is able to build the same, maybe it is worth a dollar or two. Though 5.7B is a bit much.
Apple has sold over 3 billion iPhones and 4.5 billion iPhones, iPads, and iPods together.
$5.7B seems low if every one of those devices infringes.
If it’s iPhone 6s and later and all watches (for taptic input), that’s around 2 1/3 billion phones and 1/3 billion watches, so even just $2/device gets you into that range.
The thing that is patentable isn't "a vibration". It's the exact, specific means through which you produce that vibration.
We've gone from completely dumb eccentric rotating mass vibration to trackpads that you'd swear are actually physically clicking, or the Ice Cubes demo in in Nintendo's 1-2-Switch[0], both of which use linear resonant actuators. Those actuators are themselves a complex enough piece of technology to warrant a patent, and the techniques to simulate the feel or real physical objects using those actuators are pretty damn non-trivial as well.
As a general rule, I find that the patent system is problematic but, within the scope of the system as it exists today, these are perfectly reasonable things to patent.
> trackpads that you'd swear are actually physically clicking
Like my Mac's trackpad ? Can someone ELI5 how it works ? It's gotta be magic-adjacent cos when the machine locks up, the trackpad is deader than a doornail.
Fun fact, the other thing that can cause this is a Bluetooth mouse in a backpack that is being clicked continuously. Confused me to no end for fifteen minutes.
It's the same technique of the "3D touch" the iPhone 6S had, though that was discontinued. Capacitive sensors measure microscopic changes in the glass, as it slightly flexes when you press it. Then a haptic motor does a little kick to simulate the feel of it being pressed down.
They've been doing this since 2015 or so. Prior Macs didn't click on the top 1/4 of the trackpad, because there was basically a "hinge" there and the glass would actually press on a physical button.
no, it sends a large “click” across the whole surface which your finger registers as a local click, they have two large and two small haptic motors in a line iirc and they do some software magic to cancel out the click so it feels extremely localised.
I just tried on my macbook trackpad and if I rest a finger in on part and click with a finger in another part both fingers feel the click. But I suspect this is a bug, not a feature, for multi-touch interfaces.
It's literally a voice coil with a mass on it. Literally anyone who has ever played with a solenoid, and hooked it up to a speaker, has made one. I did it when I was a kid, decades ago, and watched it vibrate on the table and in my hand. When I tried the first haptic thing I knew exactly how they did it. It's so incredibly obvious I don't understand how it's even patentable, with all the prior "make thing vibrate with electromagnet" work.
It's not really "high tech", it's just tuned well, with some high power for the size.
I think the bit where you tune it to share around a big mass around it may be the non-obvious part.
Because frankly, I played with and disassembled many speakers of various sizes too when I was young, and one thing I internalized then is that speakers are piss poor at shaking anything except their own membrane. You can't just make things vibrate with a small speaker glued to a random thing. That's why as a kid I was not surprised to discover vibrators are spinning some unbalanced weight around - obviously that would shake things (as experienced by anyone who saw a washing machine decide to take a walk).
from the article, Taction themselves agreed Apple's tech was different :
"Apple's Taptic Engine is fundamentally different from Taction's technology, which Taction's own testing of Apple's products confirmed during trial," Apple said in response
Yeah it's a weird case. First time, Taction agrees Apple didn't infringe. Apple found not infringing. Then why appeal? Taction's lawyer not happy? Hard to tell from teh article.
I'm interested in reading more information as it comes out, but a lot of the comments claiming it's "just vibrations" are being a bit reductionist. These devices are controlled by complex algorithms, and they take a lot of time and money to create. Why shouldn't this company enjoy the same IP protections that Apple enjoys on their work?
My issue with stuff like this is their work is not worth $6 billion dollars. Yes it takes time to develop this stuff but it isn't ground-breaking work and isn't especially novel. A room of experienced engineers, given the same constraints, would likely be able to come to the same design conclusions without much time or expense. Patents in general have this problem. A lot of it is a race to patent as much obvious and fringe-not-immediately-useful-today stuff as possible and it unfortunately works a lot of the time.
Such a ridiculous take. Of course a room full of engineers can probably come up with a solution.
But what got those engineers in the same room in the first place?
What got them in the same room in the first place was them being the only group of people (most likely) working on a specific piece of enabling technology that they believed would be rewarded by the market and adoption AND they needed to make a living in the mean time (getting paid to do that work.)
A patent is the best thing we’ve collectively come up with to allow said group / company to invest the time and money in advance to making that technology and wants to risk/trade 20 future years to collect profit on the work they do now.
But what got those engineers in the same room in the first place?
If whoever happens to need the technology first is almost certain to invent it, it's not worth $6B. The idea behind patents is supposed to be disclosing things that people wouldn't otherwise come up with on their own.
Not saying that's true here, but it's certainly true for a lot of patents. (Variable-speed windshield wipers deserved a government-enforced monopoly? Really?)
This is basically my point. I don't think there's $6 billion of value in those engineers coming up with this patent before Apple came up with the same solution years later. There is some value to it, and I don't think we need a patent-troll-enabling ecosystem to still have economic incentive for people to engineer these solutions simply because they're useful to a profitable product, and not just because they hope to later sue someone for patent infringement years later.
> But what got those engineers in the same room in the first place?
The interest in a shared problem and the passion to solve it?
> A patent is the best thing we’ve collectively come up with
I think that’s a bold claim in the face of the numerous contributions from e.g. universities, open source communities, single-person projects, etc that have pushed the world forward. We simply do not know a world free of the oppression of patents.
> If you don’t like the game, get better at it.
I don’t think people will be playing this game much longer in the face of generative AI, unless ofc the ruling classes succeed in locking down access to that tech.
> Why shouldn't this company enjoy the same IP protections that Apple enjoys on their work?
I think they do, but the company themselves found Apple didn't infringe, and then the court agreed. somehow it got appealed and then the appeals jury said they did not willfully infringe, so ... $5.7 billion?
I remember working at an office building and the company on the floor above us won a big patent suit against Microsoft. We didn't see them at the office after that. I assumed they just stopped working and lived off the money.
Can I get a patent? On faster than light drive or blood Pulse_oximetry an idea first conceived in the (1840’s). The first useful invention that you could hold in your hand was created by a German scientist in the 1930s.
Apple still lost the American lawsuit however, but because of all the prior work in Japan, Germany and Britain from the early 1900’s the American patents have no standing in the rest of the world.
Im going to guess that Apple doesnt actually manufacture the device but buys them from some mass producer. The same mass producer also sells the same to all the other device manufacturers. So why would they only limit themselves to Apple ?
48 comments
[ 6.7 ms ] story [ 74.7 ms ] threadI wonder what it’ll be like after appeal.
You spin a unbalanced thing in a circle and it creates a vibration. Make it less unbalanced and you get a smoother vibration.
As nobody else seems to care or is able to build the same, maybe it is worth a dollar or two. Though 5.7B is a bit much.
Apple has sold over 3 billion iPhones and 4.5 billion iPhones, iPads, and iPods together.
$5.7B seems low if every one of those devices infringes.
If it’s iPhone 6s and later and all watches (for taptic input), that’s around 2 1/3 billion phones and 1/3 billion watches, so even just $2/device gets you into that range.
We've gone from completely dumb eccentric rotating mass vibration to trackpads that you'd swear are actually physically clicking, or the Ice Cubes demo in in Nintendo's 1-2-Switch[0], both of which use linear resonant actuators. Those actuators are themselves a complex enough piece of technology to warrant a patent, and the techniques to simulate the feel or real physical objects using those actuators are pretty damn non-trivial as well.
As a general rule, I find that the patent system is problematic but, within the scope of the system as it exists today, these are perfectly reasonable things to patent.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtlqvVfk1-Q
Like my Mac's trackpad ? Can someone ELI5 how it works ? It's gotta be magic-adjacent cos when the machine locks up, the trackpad is deader than a doornail.
They've been doing this since 2015 or so. Prior Macs didn't click on the top 1/4 of the trackpad, because there was basically a "hinge" there and the glass would actually press on a physical button.
I wonder if there's a teardown that has really dug into it.
It's not really "high tech", it's just tuned well, with some high power for the size.
Because frankly, I played with and disassembled many speakers of various sizes too when I was young, and one thing I internalized then is that speakers are piss poor at shaking anything except their own membrane. You can't just make things vibrate with a small speaker glued to a random thing. That's why as a kid I was not surprised to discover vibrators are spinning some unbalanced weight around - obviously that would shake things (as experienced by anyone who saw a washing machine decide to take a walk).
"Apple's Taptic Engine is fundamentally different from Taction's technology, which Taction's own testing of Apple's products confirmed during trial," Apple said in response
So the article doesn't explain why it was appealed, then found shady on appeal.
it's a weird article, worth reading.
Appeals said that was inappropriately based on narrowing the claim too far and excluding expert testimony.
Second time a jury heard the whole thing, and found Apple infringed.
Also, “The jury did not find the infringement willful. Apple said it will appeal.”
But what got those engineers in the same room in the first place?
What got them in the same room in the first place was them being the only group of people (most likely) working on a specific piece of enabling technology that they believed would be rewarded by the market and adoption AND they needed to make a living in the mean time (getting paid to do that work.)
A patent is the best thing we’ve collectively come up with to allow said group / company to invest the time and money in advance to making that technology and wants to risk/trade 20 future years to collect profit on the work they do now.
If you don’t like the game, get better at it.
If whoever happens to need the technology first is almost certain to invent it, it's not worth $6B. The idea behind patents is supposed to be disclosing things that people wouldn't otherwise come up with on their own.
Not saying that's true here, but it's certainly true for a lot of patents. (Variable-speed windshield wipers deserved a government-enforced monopoly? Really?)
The interest in a shared problem and the passion to solve it?
> A patent is the best thing we’ve collectively come up with
I think that’s a bold claim in the face of the numerous contributions from e.g. universities, open source communities, single-person projects, etc that have pushed the world forward. We simply do not know a world free of the oppression of patents.
> If you don’t like the game, get better at it.
I don’t think people will be playing this game much longer in the face of generative AI, unless ofc the ruling classes succeed in locking down access to that tech.
I think they do, but the company themselves found Apple didn't infringe, and then the court agreed. somehow it got appealed and then the appeals jury said they did not willfully infringe, so ... $5.7 billion?
Something is way weirder than usual in this case
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10659885B2/en?oq=us10659... claims 17 and 19
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10820117B2/en?oq=us10820... claim 16
https://www.enzuzo.com/blog/data-privacy-lawsuits
https://openclassactions.com/news/apple-siri-settlement-paym...
Apple still lost the American lawsuit however, but because of all the prior work in Japan, Germany and Britain from the early 1900’s the American patents have no standing in the rest of the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_oximetry