Palm Drops Graffiti

On Jan. 13, 2003, the Graffiti era came to an abrupt end when PalmSource, the software arm of Palm Computing, announced that beginning with an interim release of the Palm operating system, Graffiti would no longer be part of the Palm package.

The decision is a step toward resolving long-running patent litigation in which Xerox Corp. claims that Graffiti infringes a 1993 patent on handwriting-recognition technology. The dispute, however, remains ongoing, having oscillated between the U.S. District Court in Rochester, N.Y., the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for the past six years. Dropping Graffiti should limit any further potential liability from accruing.

Upcoming products from Palm Solutions (Palm Computing's hardware division) and other Palm OS licensees will use Graffiti 2, a version of the third-party Jot character-recognition software from Communications Intelligence Corp. Jot itself has been available as a third-party application for both Palms and Pocket PCs. Existing Palm devices will continue to run Graffiti because the change affects only new products.