strokes-mode and touchscreen patents? was Re: emacs and touchscreen

strokes-mode and touchscreen patents? was Re: emacs and touchscreen

[David O'Toole]

Something occurred to me today after watching my touchscreen
strokes-mode video. Could the gesture recognition in strokes.el either
1. be threatened by patents that existed prior to 1997 (the first year
of copyright listed in strokes.el) or 2. qualify as prior art for
techniques patented later?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw8SQqmHPbI



On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 3:26 AM,  <joakim@verona.se> wrote:
> "David O'Toole" <dto1138@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I recently got an HP Touchsmart TM2 and decided to try emacs's
>> existing Strokes mode gesture support with the touchscreen. It's
>> great, please see the demo video I made:
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw8SQqmHPbI
>>
>> (John Sullivan pointed out that I should make this video available in
>> WebM format, and I'll let you know when that's ready.)
>>
>> I used a wrapper function and some configurations to make strokes-mode
>> behave better on a touchscreen, but a little more work is required.
>> I'd like to submit a patch or two for strokes-mode at some point, and
>> will keep you posted. I also don't have very many gestures defined---I
>> would love to work with interested people on building a gestural
>> command language.
>>
>> Here are the configs/gesture data I'm using.
>>
>> http://github.com/dto/emacs-gestures
>
> I'm also interested in Emacs on tablets.
>
> So far I have used grab-and-drag.el, which is very nice and I think
> orthogonal to gestures.el.
>
> Currently they dont work together very well. I think a "toggle grab and
> drag" gesture would be workable.
>
> there would be 2 states:
> -  (grab-and-drag-mode 0), all gestures enabled
> - (grab-and-drag-mode 1), only the toggle grab-and-drag gesture enabled.
>
> BTW I have an old completion mode called "pocketcompletion.el" aimed at
> tablets, I intend to publish at: https://github.com/jave any millenia
> now...
>
> --
> Joakim Verona
>

Re: strokes-mode and touchscreen patents? was Re: emacs and touchscreen

[Tassilo Horn]

Hi David,

wow, strokes is really nifty!  I didn't know it till now.

Do you know if there's a way to define a stroke by giving a string?  The
problem with the ~/.strokes file is that I cannot see how the strokes
look like after defining them, so I'd prefer stuffing something like

(strokes-global-set-stroke
  (stroke-from-string (concat
"        @@@@@\n"
"       @@   @@@@\n"
"    @@@        @@@\n"
"  @@             @@\n"
"  @               @@\n"
"  @                 @\n"
"  @@                @\n"
"    @@            @@@\n"
"     @@@@      @@@@\n"
"        @@@@@@@@@\n"))
  'some-command)

Or it would be even much cooler to be able to define strokes that look
like some character:

(strokes-global-set-stroke (stroke-from-char ?o) 'some-command)

Is something like that possible?

Bye,
Tassilo

Re: strokes-mode and touchscreen patents? was Re: emacs and touchscreen

[Stefan Monnier]

> Something occurred to me today after watching my touchscreen
> strokes-mode video. Could the gesture recognition in strokes.el either
> 1. be threatened by patents that existed prior to 1997 (the first year
> of copyright listed in strokes.el)

Better not try to find out, since distributing infringing things is
a more serious offense if you know it's infringing than if you don't.

> or 2. qualify as prior art for techniques patented later?

Most software patents have obvious prior art, according to lots of people.
So, yes, that's probably the case.  Then again it doesn't matter:
- the court's notion of "obvious prior art" is quite different from what
  most people expect.
- invalidating a patent is an enormous undertaking that costs a lot of money.

Just stop worrying about all that crap and instead help fight the
legality of software patents as a whole.


        Stefan

Re: strokes-mode and touchscreen patents? was Re: emacs and touchscreen

[David O'Toole]

> Better not try to find out, since distributing infringing things is
> a more serious offense if you know it's infringing than if you don't.

The distributor in question would be the FSF which has distributed
strokes-mode since (apparently) 1997.

> Just stop worrying about all that crap and instead help fight the
> legality of software patents as a whole.

Can you explain why you think sidestepping a perfectly legitimate due
diligence question about part of Emacs is supposed to help the cause
of eliminating software patents? I've never heard an attorney say
"just stop worrying about all that crap."

strokes-mode and touchscreen patents? was Re: emacs and touchscreen

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

David O'Toole writes:
 > Something occurred to me today after watching my touchscreen
 > strokes-mode video. Could the gesture recognition in strokes.el either
 > 1. be threatened by patents that existed prior to 1997 (the first year
 > of copyright listed in strokes.el) or 2. qualify as prior art for
 > techniques patented later?

1.  Yes.  But why limit to earlier patents?  It infringes patents
    granted afterward, as well.  Once a patent is granted, it is the
    defendent's problem to break the patent, not the patentholder's
    problem to justify the patent.  This is very costly even if you
    have rock-solid prior art.

2.  Yes.  But see point 1 for why this doesn't really matter to you
    unless you're really rich.

Re: strokes-mode and touchscreen patents? was Re: emacs and touchscreen

[David O'Toole]

If I do by some chance strike it rich, I would want to fund prior art research.

On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 9:56 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:
> David O'Toole writes:
>  > Something occurred to me today after watching my touchscreen
>  > strokes-mode video. Could the gesture recognition in strokes.el either
>  > 1. be threatened by patents that existed prior to 1997 (the first year
>  > of copyright listed in strokes.el) or 2. qualify as prior art for
>  > techniques patented later?
>
> 1.  Yes.  But why limit to earlier patents?  It infringes patents
>    granted afterward, as well.  Once a patent is granted, it is the
>    defendent's problem to break the patent, not the patentholder's
>    problem to justify the patent.  This is very costly even if you
>    have rock-solid prior art.
>
> 2.  Yes.  But see point 1 for why this doesn't really matter to you
>    unless you're really rich.
>
>

Re: strokes-mode and touchscreen patents? was Re: emacs and touchscreen

[Richard Stallman]

    I've never heard an attorney say
    "just stop worrying about all that crap."

Unless I misremember, that is what they say.

Thus, you really should not publicly tell someone about a patent
covering his program.


-- 
Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org, www.gnu.org

Re: strokes-mode and touchscreen patents? was Re: emacs and touchscreen

[Richard Stallman]

    If I do by some chance strike it rich, I would want to fund prior art research.

Prior art exists only for some patents, so looking for it is a very laborious
way to solve only part of teh problem.

It is better to fund the campaign to abolish software patents.
That is an easier path.

-- 
Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org, www.gnu.org