Erik Sherman

On Friday afternoon, The New York Times' Nick Bilton posted an item on the paper's Bits blog entitled "Apple Now Owns The Page Turn," citing U.S. Patent D670,713.

Incredulous, Bilton wrote:

This design patent, titled, “Display screen or portion thereof with animated graphical user interface,” gives Apple the exclusive rights to the page turn in an e-reader application.

Yes, that’s right. Apple now owns the page turn. You know, as when you turn a page with your hand. An “interface” that has been around for hundreds of years in physical form. I swear I’ve seen similar animation in Disney or Warner Brothers cartoons.

(This is where readers are probably checking the URL of this article to make sure it’s The New York Times and not The Onion.)

By Erik Sherman / MoneyWatch/ November 19, 2012, 8:55 AM (MoneyWatch) Yet another technology pundit has lauded Apple (AAPL) for patenting a widely used feature in mobile devices that ostensibly will let the consumer electronics giant pound tablet and...

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