Patents cover inventions of methods and processes to accomplish something-- implementations, not the idea or the feature.
Thus pinch-to-zoom as Jeff demonstrated it, using cameras to take pictures of your hands is not the same thing as apple doing it using software to turn noisy amorphous blobs into finger points on a capacitive touch screen.
Other people can implement pinch-to-zoom because pinch-to-zoom cannot be patented.
Both Apple and Jeff Han could have patents on their very different implementations of this same feature.
Unfortunately people really seem to believe that patents cover features, and I think this is due to the deliberate spin put on the discussions by anti-patent people.
If you disagree, try reading the pinch-to-zoom patent itself.
Thus pinch-to-zoom as Jeff demonstrated it, using cameras to take pictures of your hands is not the same thing as apple doing it using software to turn noisy amorphous blobs into finger points on a capacitive touch screen.
Other people can implement pinch-to-zoom because pinch-to-zoom cannot be patented.
Both Apple and Jeff Han could have patents on their very different implementations of this same feature.
Unfortunately people really seem to believe that patents cover features, and I think this is due to the deliberate spin put on the discussions by anti-patent people.
If you disagree, try reading the pinch-to-zoom patent itself.