Well aren't you fancy with all your latin :). It means "for example" of course, I also know that in a legal text if you don't define something exactly lawyers will find a way around it. You brought it up, I don't think the directionality of the scrolling matters only the difference between the scroll action and the resultant end-of-screen bounce (what this patent is really all about) and how that's different from a not further defined gesture action resulting in scaling.

No, "scaling" is what the interface does as the result of a gesture, pinching is what the fingers do which again is not defined in the document. There's a reason the patent is called "Application programming interfaces for scrolling operations": it focusses on scrolling and how that operation is distinguished from a gesture. And a gesture is just defined as having 2 ore more input points without further elaborating on the state of those input points.

Scrolling is defined in the full patent text as :

"Scrolling is the act of sliding a directional (e.g., horizontal or vertical) presentation of content, such as text, drawings, or images, across a screen or display window. In a typical graphical user interface, scrolling is done with the help of a scrollbar or using keyboard shortcuts often the arrow keys. Gesturing is a type of user input with two or more input points. Animating operations include changing content within a given time period."

So, they only mention the 2 axis.

Look around on trains and subways or coffee shops: personal computers are going mainstream in a way they haven't before, crucially even among those we would consider to be tech-illiterate. Like the Mac (or Lisa) decades ago(*), we're defining a new way of interacting with our computers that'll probably be with us for a good long time and it'll impact more people than ever before.

(*) Because I know someone will bring this up, yes there was Xerox but the Mac, with all the changes it made to the Xerox model, was the one who went out into the world, got copied by everyone and became the archetypal GUI.

Ah, but it doesn't mention pinching, what it is is a method to determine an action based on the fact if 1 (resulting scrolling) or 2 fingers (resulting in a gesture) are on the screen. It doesn't define the gesture, whence the workaround mentioned in the article of having 2 finger scrolling so this patent is circumvented because there is no differentiation being done based on the 1 finger -> scroll, 2 fingers -> gesture method. Or so I gather, I am no lawyer.

Meh, maybe someone will actually read the article and take away a new insight or learn something they didn't before, I know I did. I'd call that a win. The comments here will be ... well like they always are, good or bad that's Slashdot.
I don't think this court case is a defining moment, but the rise of smartphones and tablets is and at te very least all these court actions expose what the main players are thinking, where they come from and where they want to go. At the same time there's the entire discussion that keeps raging about patents and what should and shouldn't be patentable. I think it's definitely interesting and worth following closely. Also: huge arguments about tiny details, it's what geeks do best.

Nilay Patel of the verge, an actual honest-to-god copyright lawyer not just someone who plays an expert on the web, disagrees in his aptly named "The myth of pinch-to-zoom: how a confused media gave Apple something it doesn't own":

"So let's just be extremely clear about this: the jury ruled that 21 of 24 accused Samsung phones infringed claim 8 of Apple patent 7,844,915, which specifically covers a programming interface which detects if one finger on a screen is scrolling or two or more fingers are doing something else. It is one possible step along the road to pinch-to-zoom, but it is definitely not pinch-to-zoom itself. And — crucially — it may not be that hard to design around."

Maybe read up there too ?

I submitted this article because firstly this has been such a huge story in the mainstream press that it's good opportunity to investigate how reliable the information coming from them about tech matters is and secondly because there is a lot of confusion even among geeks about what was at stake in this trial resulting in a low signal to noise ratio in the discussions. Personally I do also believe we are at a defining moment in the modern computing industry so even if this lawsuit may end up being of little to no importance the close attention is warranted.

You've got the floor here. Offer any kind of proof or even a plausible argument instead of baseless allegations. I've never seen anyone do that instead of just insinuating things.

He says "Build quality is terrible even by Samsungs low standards." I assume that since this is a review on an Android site he sees a fair number of these. Thought it was interesting, I'm not into Android so I can't gauge how that community actually feels about Samsung products but clearly some are less than enthusiastic. And of course I love the glass and aluminum thing so anything plastic (and I do own that kind of gadget) feels cheap and creaky so it speaks to my biases.

Possibly. In the end it's all just speculation. Could be just a marketing push that was scheduled to precede the expected new iPhone launch for example. We'll not know until some time has passed and we get quarterly figures (and even then.)

Truly an example of the intelligent and discerning Android customer.

(OK I admit it, this one is little troll-ish but come on.)

Samsung ... the underdog ? This is a mega conglomerate that had a revenue of $247.5 billion in 2011 compared to Apple's $108.249 billion

When a recent review for a Samsung tablet by an Android site says something like this I doubt it :

"The build quality. Terrible even by Samsung's low standards. The back is actually squishy, and you can feel it deform while holding it. It's noisy too, the plastic creaks, groans, and grinds when you pick it up. Regular, strong plastic would still be unacceptable when everyone else uses aluminum, but this... this is insulting for a $500 tablet"

ALL these numbers are suspect including the ones cited by Forbes. These "tech analysts" are notoriously unreliable, and you can find one willing to support any argument you want to make.

Marketwatch sees a completely different phenomenon :

"While many experts predict Apple Inc.’s court victory over Samsung could shake up the wireless industry over the long term, it’s already having an impact on one key area: the resale market.

Since the $1.05 billion verdict Friday — which found that Samsung infringed on six Apple AAPL -1.04% patents — customers of Samsung have been dumping their Android products on at least one major resale site. Gazelle.com reports a 50% increase in Samsung smartphones over the past three days, which has led to a 10% drop in prices for those devices"