After the uncannily iPhone look-alike palm arrived on the scene, Apple COO , Tim Cook  took the following dig at the Palm model and other iPhone look-alikes and work-alkes in on the prowl:

We will not stand for having our IP ripped off… I don’t want to talk about any specific company

Mr. Cook also stressed that Apple would use “every weapon at our disposal” to protect the iPhone’s intellectual property.

Well, now that weapon is out and it’s a pretty potent one at that. Apple Inc has been awarded a patent that covers much of the iPhone’s multitouch UI.

Under the title “Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics” this long patent, approved by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, covers most of the methods used by the iPhone to display data on its touch screen, such as pinch-to-zoom Web browsing, swipe-to-scroll etc.

See the full (and very long) patent here.

Looks like Apple is taking the patent for various aspects of the iPhone pretty seriously -from sound sensors for iPhones and other Mac Powered devices to iPhone accessories and now the multitouch interface.

Should we say hard times for pretenders? Feel free to tell us what you think about this development.