It seems Apple filed a patent application on Christmas Day.  Let’s see if any of you kids out there recognize this…

Apple files ‘swipe-gesture’ patent application

While children were nestled all snug in their beds, Apple apparently had visions of improved touch-screens in its innovative head.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office revealed a patent application from Apple, dated Christmas Day, for a swipe-gesture system to be used on touch-screen keyboards. It would allow for a user to "perform certain functions using swipes across the key area rather than tapping particular keys," according to the patent application, authored by Wayne Westerman.

For example, the application explains that leftward, rightward, upward and downward swipes might be assigned to inserting a space, backspacing, shifting, or inserting a carriage return.

Can anyone tell us what this resembles?  Anyone?  Bueller?

Ars Technica’s Infinite Loop, which like MacRumors explains the patent in more detail, likens the technology to a "Palm Graffiti-like interpretation layer to the standard iPhone keyboard."

In other words…Palm already did this.  For those of you who never had a Palm device, they have a Graffiti text entry pad under the display window, where you can enter text using the Graffiti or Graffiti-2 gestures.  Those gestures include swiping up to shift to upper case, swiping from top right to bottom left to enter a carriage return, swiping left to right to enter a space and right to left to backspace.  You could also tap the bottom left corner to bring up a stylus touch keyboard on the display.  You could use your fingers on it, but only if you have narrow fingers with hard nails like mine.  Which is why I never fret about loosing my stylus.

In the comments to the article you find that apparently Microsoft the same thing in its Windows CE pocket PC OS.  Apple’s only claim to uniqueness on this can only be that it’s layered Over the keyboard.  That’s nice, but is that alone patent worthy?  Of course not.  It’s obvious.   The innovation is the system of gestures, and Palm did that ages ago.  And for all I know they may have gotten it from someone else, just like Apple got the Mac user interface from Xerox.

Our patent system is out of control.  Instead of encouraging and rewarding innovation, which is the reason for its existence in the first place, it is stifling it.  Worse, it’s being used as a club by large corporations to drive smaller competitors out of business.  If you invent a new technology, I can make a tiny change to it, file a patent on it, and then not only do I get to use your technology for free, I prevent you from capitalizing on it.