This Apple patent lists Steve Jobs as an inventor and is directed towards touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics. Mr. Jobs was awarded U.S. Patent 7479949 entitled “Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics” on January 20, 2009. The utility patent has been cited 727 times by other U.S. patents in the field of computer technology and in other fields.

A computer-implemented method for use in conjunction with a computing device with a touch screen display comprises: detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display, applying one or more heuristics to the one or more finger contacts to determine a command for the device, and processing the command. The one or more heuristics comprise: a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command, a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a two-dimensional screen translation command, and a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a command to transition from displaying a respective item in a set of items to displaying a next item in the set of items. Link: U.S. Patent 7479949

Apple filed this utility patent on April 11, 2008 giving it a processing time of 284 days (compared to an average processing time of 1599 in the field). They have a total number of 15027 patents. The first named inventor is Steve P. Jobs of Palo Alto, CA. The patent was allowed by primary examiner Duc Q Dinh and examiner .

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