Apple DOES NOT own multi-touch. Legal impossibility.

[Stanovoy]

With all the talks about how Apple owns multi-touch, I decided to look into the matter and clarify the situation once and for all.

Apple does not and cannot possible own multi-touch.

Multi-touch was patented on August 22, 2000 by Michael Ure and Menlo Park of Culpertino, CA. The application was filed in 1996, and a PCT was filed soon after. The patent number is 6,107,997 and can be retrieved here: http://www.google.com/patents?id=dB4...bstract&zoom=4

Although they are from the same town as Apple, the patent was never assigned to Apple. In fact, it was never assigned to anyone. I found this intriguing, so I dug deeper. It turned out that the inventors failed to pay the necessary maintenance fee, and the patent EXPIRED in 2004.

So there you have it, two-fingered multi-touch is now public information and no one can own it anymore. That also explains why Apple's patents are all on 4 or more fingered configurations and extremely narrow.