Assignment #4C | "Slide to Unlock" Patent

Hi friends, 

Today, I will be briefly discussing the "Slide to Unlock" Patent (Patent No. 8046721 B2) by Apple Inc. This discussion will focus primarily on the first claim, although the overall patent includes 15 claims. 

Claim 1 reads:

"1. A method of unlocking a hand-held electronic device, the device including a touch-sensitive display, the method comprising: 

detecting a contact with the touch-sensitive display at a first predefined location corresponding to an unlock image; 

continuously moving the unlock image on the touch-sensitive display in accordance with movement of the contact while continuous contact with the touch screen is maintained, wherein the unlock image is a graphical, interactive user-interface object with which a user interacts in order to unlock the device; 

and unlocking the hand-held electronic device if the moving the unlock image on the touch-sensitive display results in movement of the unlock image from the first predefined location to a predefined unlock region on the touch-sensitive display."

This claim includes Apple's features with a "hand-held electronic device" and a "touch-sensitive display"; therefore, the patent is solely relevant to iPads and iPhones.

Following that, the claim talks about the movement necessary to unlock the image: swiping one's finger from left to right.


I hope everyone enjoyed this week's blog! Hope to see your comments soon!