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Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case (GigaOm)Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case (GigaOm)Posted Jun 8, 2012 19:26 UTC (Fri) by marduk (subscriber, #3831)Parent article: Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case (GigaOm)
"[re a slide-to-unlock patent] Apple’s .. argument is that “a tap is a zero-length swipe.” That’s silly. It’s like saying that a point is a zero-length line."
Although mathematically I think this is correct, I'd hate to see the legal precedent an argument like that would make for an already horrible patent system...
I can just see the next headlines "Judge rules that a point is a zero-length line - torrent of patent lawsuits follow..."
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Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case (GigaOm) Posted Jun 8, 2012 19:27 UTC (Fri) by marduk (subscriber, #3831) [Link]
Addendum: A point is also a zero-radius circle.
Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case (GigaOm) Posted Jun 8, 2012 20:24 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
That's not always true (and not often true?): http://planetmath.org/encyclopedia/LineSegment.html
Besides you'd never say "click on this zero-length line segment". Using language like that implies someone's stretching the facts to try to fit their argument.
And that's the judge's point.
Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case (GigaOm) Posted Jun 8, 2012 23:39 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] A line cannot be zero-length. By definition, a line is infinitely long. A line segment has length. But according to the PlanetMath definition someone else posted, it can't have zero length.
Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case (GigaOm) Posted Jun 9, 2012 8:20 UTC (Sat) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
Because then we call it a point. Duh.
Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case (GigaOm) Posted Jun 10, 2012 6:57 UTC (Sun) by jd (guest, #26381) [Link]
So long as the Hausdorff dimension is strictly between 0 and 1, it is possible for a line to have a size that varies according to the ruler used to measure it, such that some rulers will produce zero size and others will produce non-zero size.
Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case (GigaOm) Posted Jun 10, 2012 17:48 UTC (Sun) by apoelstra (subscriber, #75205) [Link]
I'm pretty sure that dskoll's lines have Hausdorff dimension 1. ;)
But in all seriousness, even professional mathematicians use the words "line" and "line segment" interchangeably, since (a) in most contexts there is no ambiguity, and (b) if there is ambiguity, much more would need to be specified -- the space under consideration, whether the segments had open or closed endpoints, etc.
Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case (GigaOm) Posted Jun 16, 2012 23:06 UTC (Sat) by jtc (subscriber, #6246) [Link]
'a tap is a zero-length swipe.'
It's not true because a tap has duration - small, perhaps, compared to a swipe; but if it had no duration the device would not be able to detect it - i.e., it would not exist, it would be a <nothing>, not a tap.
Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case (GigaOm) Posted Jun 16, 2012 23:36 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
both a tap and swipe have length, duration, starting position, direction, and velocity.
for a tap, many of these values are zero, but you can encapsulate a tap into a swipe, if you really want to.
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