Too broad or too narrow? Apple multitouch patent sparks debate

Apple has been awarded a multitouch user interface patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office—a patent that has sparked debate among Apple watchers regarding whether it's broad enough to concern Apple's competitors or not.

The patent itself was filed in 2007 and describes methods for interacting with a webpage or other screen element using one or more fingers, depending on what the user is trying to do. For example, one finger might be used to scroll or move the screen around (a la moving the map around on Google’s mobile Maps page), while two fingers might be used to pinch or zoom on certain details within that page or element. The patent doesn’t go into much detail on the GUIs on the device that hosts the screen elements, nor does it expand its description to explain other forms of multitouch functionality.

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