US 2,003,229,900 · Filed 2003-05-08

The Multi-Screen Browsing Patent That Predicted Our Connected World

Imagine controlling what shows up on your phone, tablet, and laptop at the same time—that's what this patent describes. It's about letting one person coordinate content across multiple devices so they all work together seamlessly, not fight each other for attention.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers systems and methods for letting a user control which content appears on which device when multiple screens are connected together. What's protected here is the coordination mechanism itself—the way input on one device can trigger output on another, and how a user can manage resources across an integrated or independent multi-device setup. It includes both the hardware architecture and the software logic that makes devices 'talk' to each other about what to display.

Why it matters

This patent captures an idea that became central to modern computing: the expectation that your devices work as a team, not in isolation. Filed in 2003, it anticipated the rise of multi-device households—smartphones, tablets, laptops, smart TVs—where seamless handoff and coordinated display became table stakes. While the patent itself didn't create a specific product category, it staked a claim on a fundamental interaction pattern that would define user experience across consumer electronics.

Real-world use

When you start watching a show on your tablet and your smart TV automatically asks if you want to continue there, or when your phone and laptop coordinate to show different tabs from the same browsing session, you're seeing the kind of coordination this patent described.

Original USPTO abstract

Systems and methods for navigating hypermedia using multiple coordinated input/output device sets. Disclosed systems and methods allow a user and/or an author to control what resources are presented on which device sets (whether they are integrated or not), and provide for coordinating browsing activities to enable such a user interface to be employed across multiple independent systems. Disclosed systems and methods also support new and enriched aspects and applications of hypermedia browsing and related business activities.

Patent details

Publication number: US 2,003,229,900
Filing date: 2003-05-08
Grant date: Application — not yet granted
Assignee: Richard Reisman
Inventor(s): REISMAN RICHARD
CPC class: G06F16/954

View original record on Google Patents →

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