Apple granted patent on webpage scrolling behaviors

So Apple got yet another patent granted today, and now there’s yet another media firestorm over whether it means Cupertino will be able to sue every other phone manufacturer out of business, or at least out of the business of making multitouch devices. And, as usual, most of the hysteria is based on a fundamental misinterpretation of what the patent claims actually say, and what behaviors they actually cover in iOS. I don’t know why we keep repeating this sad cycle, but I do know that it’s always, always better for us to read the claims and try to figure them out for ourselves — and in this case, they’re actually pretty narrow.

What the media made out to be a broad patent that would allow Apple to bully competitors is incredibly specific to frames within a webpage that displays other content. Nilay provides an example of a Google Maps embed, and explains that companies have to meet a lot of specific criteria to infringe on the patent.