Here’s One Way to Slow Down Touch Adoption

Apple popularized multi-touch gestures with the iPhone, and others quickly adopted the approach, including Microsoft with the upcoming Windows 7 and the Microsoft Surface technology, and Palm with the recently announced Palm Pre.  Unfortunately for them, Apple was just awarded a patent for it.  Apple could license the technology of course, but this quote from Apple COO Tim Cook: makes it sound like they might not be in a hurry to share: “We like competition, as long as they don't rip off our IP. And if they do, were going to go after anybody that does.”

There are, on the other hand, already prior art arguments floating around out there (see this from Bill Buxton of Microsoft Research, for example), which I expect we will now see floating into a courtroom somewhere.  Regardless of who wins, multi-touch technology should be a significant step forward for intellectual property lawyers.