Patent for pull down to refresh mechanic.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2010/0199180.html

by nirmal • 16 years ago

34 14 16 years ago

Construct• 16 years ago

Filed 4/8/2010. I'm fairly confident that I used the pull-down refresh mechanic in other apps well before that, so these guys had better have some seriously good evidence that they were first to invent.

Then again, it's rather easy to be granted a patent. It's much harder to make it hold up in court. Still frustrating when app developers have to be afraid of implementing simple and obvious functionality like this for fear of being sued!

benatkin2• 16 years ago

It's not the filing date that matters. It's the date of the invention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_art#First-to-invent_versu...

The name on the patent is Loren Britcher, who wrote Tweetie. Did you implement the feature before Tweetie came out?

tkeller• 16 years ago

It's both.

bmalicoat• 16 years ago

Your point still stands but the mechanism was first in Tweetie 2.

zach• 16 years ago

As I understand it, there is a year after an invention is published in some form or another for an inventor to file the patent. That way the patent filing won't inhibit, or be inhibited by, the actual publication of the invention.

As a result, the filing date isn't the exact delimiter of what's prior art, but of course it must logically allow art more than a year prior to the filing date.

You'd have to look at the first time the public or media saw Tweetie use this technique. Anyone have any evidence?

irons• 16 years ago

I suppose this is why Tweetie for OS X has been languishing for a year. Loren had better things to do with his time.

maukdaddy• 16 years ago

Like getting bought?

jcsalterego2• 16 years ago

Given his outward support of other developers' using the Pull Down to Refresh mechanism, this is a defensive patent more than anything else.

http://twitter.com/atebits/status/21665180962

http://twitter.com/atebits/status/21629390400

someone_here• 16 years ago

Defensive patents can be turned offensive quite instantly. Look at what Oracle is doing.

jcsalterego2• 16 years ago

You mean how Oracle took Sun's defensive patents and unleashed all hell?

huhtenberg• 16 years ago

Sure thing, but I would take currently defensive patent over a patent of some litigious bastard anytime.

armandososa• 16 years ago

Does the patent now belong to Twitter?

lanstein• 16 years ago

Patent _application_

Patent for pull down to refresh mechanic.

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