Apple's New Award: Patented Slide to Unlock

No doubt there are advantages to being first to the game when it comes to a big company making a product.  We all see it every day (and have encountered it for years).  When it comes to Apple, they are currently one of the leading, trend setting companies out there.  They make a design and it takes off with the general public and they make money (lots and lots of money).  So naturally another company comes along and uses a competitors product for inspiration.  That has been the way of the consumer electronics world for many years now.

Well, it looks as though Apple has another win under it's belt when it comes to the 'slide to unlock' gesture that just about every touchscreen device and smartphone now uses to wake it up or unlock the screen so it can be used.  Although the appearance of the 'slide to unlock' screen may be different on various devices (given that none really mimic the exact look of Apple's unlock screen).  But they do require the same gesture to unlock certain devices.

In typical patent battle fashion, the patent name is so generic that it would no doubt encompass pretty much every method of physically touching a screen in any motion just to unlock it.  The patent name is: "Unlocking A Device by Performing Gestures on an Unlock Screen" U.S. Patent Number: 8,406,721.  So what will happen to the lock screens that people have come to know as a defacto standard among smartphones and other handheld touchscreen devices?

I'm sure this will help Apple's crusade against companies who back similar devices to Apple's product lines (essentially Google with their Android devices/system and possibly anyone else who uses this gesture to unlock a device).  This could be a big slap in the face for Google, since a slide to unlock feature has been pretty much built into Android from the very start and with Microsoft already cashing in on patents targeted at Google, maybe Android lock screens will change for the better.

It's been said many times over the last several weeks that Ice Cream Sandwhich (Android's latest iteration) will feature facial recognition to unlock the screen.  Maybe they should run with that.  Just make sure you don't have to physically touch the screen or Apple will get ya!  lol