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Patent expired in Oct 2006

wackoae Updated - 29th Apr 2010

A quick search of the patent in the official website for the US Patent and Trademark Office shows that the alleged patent expired in October 2006 DUE TO FAILURE TO PAY MAINTENANCE FEES.

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/sol/og/2006/week51/patexpi.htm

In case that was a mistake, in WikiPatents you can see that the patent is nothing but a bunch of flowcharts and drawings of fingers with a few pages of very tight words but no formulas or implementations.

http://www.wikipatents.com/US-Patent-5825352/multiple-fingers-contact-sensing-method-for-emulating-mouse-buttons/Page-1

A patent for just the title of an idea without any implementation is just like patenting air. This looks like somebody applied (and was granted) a patent for an abstract idea, then waited for somebody else to invent it. (FYI, I'm not claiming it was invented by Apple).

In that case, I'm going to patent the warp engine, the holodeck, and a bunch of StarTrek technology, then claim that I created them after someone else invents it.