[sdiy] touch keyboard patent

[Mike Bryant]

Well any patent on a keyboard looking touch area definitely has prior art.  After first making my own Stylophone I wanted to get rid of the pen so carved up a large piece of copper PCB into a keyboard in 1972, then drilled through to circuitry on a piece of Veroboard on the back which used mains hum to charge a capacitor and switched on different voltages to the VCO.  Totally monophonic, in that if you touched two keys the frequency produced was roughly the average of the two, and the variation in delay due to the 50Hz was quite audible, but it worked.
________________________________
From: Mattias Rickardsson <mr at analogue.org>
Sent: 06 October 2024 23:09
To: Tom Wiltshire <tom at electricdruid.net>
Cc: Mike Bryant <mbryant at futurehorizons.com>; SYNTH DIY <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
Subject: Re: [sdiy] touch keyboard patent


Are these patents dealing with the shape of the touch areas/traces, the control/detection circuitry and signals, methods of detecting continuous position/pressure, or all of the above?

/mr

Den sön 6 okt. 2024 20:05Tom Wiltshire <tom at electricdruid.net<mailto:tom at electricdruid.net>> skrev:
+1 agree. Just because the patent exists doesn't mean it's enforceable, or even that there's anyone still interested in enforcing it.

Make a note of which the *earliest* patent you've found is, and if anyone comes after you because of one of the later ones, tell them that there's prior art and theirs is worth nothing!

On 6 Oct 2024, at 18:10, Mike Bryant <mbryant at futurehorizons.com<mailto:mbryant at futurehorizons.com>> wrote:

People patent all sorts of things in the hope somebody just pays up.   I can't imagine there's been much innovative in touch apart from the Apple two fingered gestures for decades so just go ahead.

On 6 Oct 2024 17:59, Roman Sowa via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org<mailto:synth-diy at synth-diy.org>> wrote:
Has anyone ever dealt with capacitive touch keyboard for musical
instrument in legal terms?
There seems to be quite a few patents out there for this, and many of
them not expired at all.
I wonder how EDP managed that with their Wasp and Gnat, or maybe the
patent weren't yet granted back then?
There are also currently made instruments with touch keyboards like
Buchla and all its clones, MicroFreak and others.
Possibly if I make the pads in funny shape and with obligatory stupid
graphics, I'm safe, but I'd really like my keyboard to look like keyboard.

Roman
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