Quoting "Tim Connors" <tconnors@rather.puzzling.org>:

When big companies see their overpriced hardware threatened by the fact that they can be replaced with $2 apps:

http://niederfamily.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/goliath-v-david-aac-style.html

http://www.speakforyourself.org/About_The_App.html That does not look like rocket science, just clever. You could have done it, probably, if you would be interested. However, according to this the app developer went to seminars first so they saw the existing hardware solution before they started to build the app. http://www.scribd.com/priorsmart/d/83475314-Semantic-Compaction-Systems-et-a... Well, there is the "patented technology for dynamic keyboards and methods for dynamically redefining keys on a keyboard in the context of Augmentive and Alternative Communication". I looked at the patent http://www.google.com/patents/US4661916 too. I am not sure whether it is the one in dispute. I don't know, I have the feeling as I have many times these days: that patents do not protect outstanding ideas, most of the time just technical implementations of interesting methods, not necessarily innovative ones. This one was filed in 1985. The "new thing" at the time was an affordable and portable voice synthesizer, that opened the door to input methods to create voice. The other one was the availability of computers with memory to cache messages. The idea to use ambiguous symbols to communicate is much older, I am sure. The idea of patents isn't working today, that's my opinion. Definitely not for computer-associated "inventions". Regards Peter