Explaining Claim 1 of “Swipe to Unlock” Patent

Explaining Claim 1 of “Swipe to Unlock” Patent

This blog post will explain US patent 8046721B2, specifically Claim 1. This patent is described “Unlocking a Device by Performing Gestures on an Unlock Image.” It was filed June 2, 2009. It has a total of 15 claims.

So Claim 1 says:

“A method of unlocking a hand held device including a touch sensitive display, the method comprising direct contact with the touch screen display etc.”

So the claim goes on and on but generally here are the key ideas that I took away:

-          Type of Device – Hand held device, so I am guessing this refers to phones, tablets, and anything in between. The device has to be touch sensitive.

-          The swiping motion – this is really simple since we all know what swipe to unlock means, but describing this process is long. For example, the patent includes the visual cues that suggest u have to swipe left right or down. It also includes the graphical interface and the image being used to unlock, for example the image of a lock.

Some questions that I had:

-          The patent has some really general statements or claims. For example – “The method of claim 1, wherein the moving comprises movement along any desired path.” I wonder how strictly these patents are actually enforced.

Reading this patent case was very interesting to me because I never realized how nuanced the process actually was. Reading through the case, I saw a lot of diagrams that mapped out the swiping movements, and because I had thought of the touch to unlock feature as given and intuitive, I did not realize that it took a lot of effort into making the idea work.