Reuters:

U.S. patent authorities rejected Apple Inc’s key “pinch-to-zoom” patent in an initial ruling, the second setback in less than two months for the iPhone maker in its patent battle with Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

This rejection is good for everyone. Apple shouldn’t be the only company able to use pinch-to-zoom on mobile devices. They definitely didn’t invent it (that link is a TED Talk by Jeff Han from 2006, one year before the iPhone debuted.).

Also—it’s not “pinch-to-zoom”. It’s pinch-to-zoom-out and spread-to-zoom-in. That drives me insane.