The rubber band patent covers list scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display.

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And unlike the formal process laid out for amending that founding document, the patent bill has been rushed as just another piece of legislation with the most cursory of review and negligible debate, in a manner that reeks of Pelosi-esque high-handedness.

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But what he really needed was an app that could translate the patent gobbledegook contained in that Lodsys document.

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The US Patent Office only revealed Apple's filing on Thursday, but the document dates back to August 2011.

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