4

As Apple won lawsuits against Motorola and Samsung with the so called overscroll patent, I am asking myself what the legal consequences of releasing an application with such a feature are?

I think if one releases the app in IOS it would be okay, but what happens in Android or Windows? Am I getting sued?

What happens if I am writing an app for the browser?

Isn't this overscroll patent a design patent? If this is true, all apps that use overscrolling and not written by Apple, would be illegal.

Very confusing.

Can anyone explain is?

gnat
  • 21,442
  • 29
  • 112
  • 288
user61664
  • 149
  • 2
  • Firefox on Android has overscrolling. If you're worried about litigation probably best to avoid it I guess, as @coder543 mentions. – Deco Sep 18 '12 at 23:38
  • I was thinking also that. The guys at mozilla should be careful. But maybe it is uninteresting for apple to sue them. – user61664 Sep 19 '12 at 09:35
  • 2
    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is asking for legal advice. –  Jan 06 '16 at 00:06

1 Answers1

5

The courts should never have allowed Apple to sue using that patent, but the simple solution is not to do overscroll anywhere but on iOS.

Be creative. Come up with a different way elsewhere. Overscroll isn't the only way of showing that a user has reached the end.

On Android 4.0+, they create a glow at the bottom (or top) that grows as the user continues to try scrolling. Example: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b6FU3amRLn0/T221H_SFK6I/AAAAAAAAADg/-ynw9wexjjk/s1600/Overscroll.png

So, pull out some creativity.

coder543
  • 201
  • 1
  • 3
  • 7
    And patent that solution! – James Sep 18 '12 at 22:19
  • Actually, the picture you linked to is at least Android 2.3, but it may be 2.2 - the glowing overscroll has been around in Android for a while (at least in custom roms - don't run much stock). Older CM roms used to give you a choice between glow, bounce, or both. – Drake Clarris Sep 19 '12 at 12:08
  • I realize it is probably 2.3, but that is an almost exact representation of the default overscroll style that Google implemented in Android 4.0, so I felt I would rather mention Google's efforts rather than some modder's efforts, because we know Google has to worry heavily about patent lawsuits. The modder could live on the moon for all we know, and have no worries about such things. – coder543 Sep 19 '12 at 13:15