I know a thing or two about patents and what not, so a couple of off-topic comments if you don't mind.

1. I assume you realize that you just made a "public disclosure" of the idea, meaning for example that you now have a year in the US/Canada to file for a patent.

2. The idea itself is probably not patentable to begin with. This is because it does not include an "inventive step", i.e. something that makes the invention "non-obvious to those skilled in art". The model of control you are describing (if I understand it correctly) has been used before, both in games and professional apps. Specifically I am pretty sure the (click-hold-and-then-move-mouse-to-define-a-vector) controls were used in a game called Homeworld back in late 90s, early 00s.

3. You may want to flip through Synaptics and Apple patent portfolios. Even if they don't have this specific idea patented, it might be easily added to one of their pending apps. This is a very nasty patent abuse practice called "submarine patents", and this is exactly why you shouldn't be making _any_ public disclosure of the idea before you file.

The patent files date is 17, june 2009, Application Number is 61/187,705 and was deposit in the US, i'm totally protected.
i work with a patent Information Technology specialist company, we got through basical 800 patents including Apple.
As they were somes 3'500 patents about the subject, i'm not sure, and can't be because for patent there is a 18 month secret so
anyway this process is a bit like poker. They may be patent about similar process, but i just give a glance of my invention it's more
complex and more complete than it seems,it's hard to resume 20 pages in few lines event the illustration i show are incomplete.
"innovative technology" is the name of this kind of patent, the subcategory if you like.
And i will use this patent in games since with friend we're in the process of making games for iphone, i'm not doing parking technology.
Thanks for your concern about public disclosure, but it's been a three month process in wich i have to shut my mouth, now i can talk about it the patent is file and have other person opinion about it. i had a shock past week end because a game was show with a similar tech, in finality it was just a drag & drop tech not a presistant movement like my tech.

This (top) version add more info about the technology, but i think it loose in term of simplicity/purity.

On this one the upper right arrow don't fit to the arrow of the pad/cross

Ok, cool. Great to hear that you have things under control and the patent has more flesh to it that it seems from the first glance. Looking forward to reading it ;-)

Regarding the mark - I think a Swiss Cross based icon is a way to go. That really binds the name, the domain and the logo together. The sticking out arrow though doesn't seem to be working, at least not in its current thin pointy form.

Regarding the type - if words are capitalized, I don't think they need to have different weights. The trailing thin part with a dot in it kind of throws the type of the balance. Basically there's just too much going on in the right part of the type.

THX :))

i make bold the Virtual to help reading the Touch as it and not tou(dot)ch
someting i forgot to mention is that the name is (will be) the web adress www.VirutalTou.ch we have other web adress
in dot com but this one is the coolest because the .ch is include in the name and logo.

Somes previous research

I've made some rework, what do you think ? Does the arrow fit better ?

The arrow isn't working. It says "go away". If you're really fixated on using it, perhaps try giving it some curve and length?

In your row of sketches above, I like the second and third, but even there the arrow doesn't work. I might start with those sketches and try curved arrows.

Another thought -- ditch the stem of the arrow and just use a static triangle or hollow arrow tip?

AK

my first impression is ... they all seem very rigid and static for such a tactile/dynamic method of interaction.

----------
Paul Ducco
Graphic Designer - Melbourne

Feels way too busy my my tastes.

mmmhhh... i though that arrow was a good thing because this is the basic of the tech, while dragging your finger, you create a vector that indacte a contstant deplacement in a direction.
i had tough (not tried yet) of a curvy line, more alive, more natural, but then i though that i'll separate the VirtualTou.ch (wich is the basics, and can be applied a thousand different manner) and the VirtualTouchPad (wich will be more for Games or navigating
in a 3D space, like a 3d starmap). And considering that my though was to minimalize the VirtualTou.ch logo to the basic and make someting more lively for the VirtualTouchPad.
But i will reconsider all that considering your comments because it's really a natural way of manipulation 3d, a can be very quick reacting for games (like quake or doom like, or 3rd person shooter like Gears of War) and have a very smart ways to substitute buttons like ie: maintaining triggers for shooting, or activating booster.
But my original idea (wich may be wrong) was to do a technical logo that (when you know the technology) helps remeber what is it about, and is targeted to technical people at big companies like EA or Nokia or HP for example, not gamers, and make something quite sober, then the idea of the .ch thing came and i choose to add color and make the cross bolder to match the Switzerland identity.

i'm working on some more natural but is it less busy, i'm not sure what you mean by busy, did you mean too much graphic elements?

I see what you're saying about the market – it's not the end user, but the tech companies that you're targetting.

But, if you did choose to pursue a more 'tactile' approach, I could see the cross being formed by two 'finger-and-thumb' drags.

2 x (2 vectors; 1 axis)

Ross

Hi,
I really liked the way you put the concepts together but the way its shows does not fit like a good logo.I feel if the directional concept is integrated into the square space it would also give the identity of movement inside a screen.Just a suggestion which came to my mind.

Varghese Mathew
India

In the samples where you have Virtual Tou.ch and Innovative Technology aligned left, you need to nudge Innovative Technology to the right a bit. I realize it is lined up exactly with Virtual Tou.ch but the negative space in the V is making Innovative look visually off-balance.

As much as I love Museo I don't think it fits this mark. I think a light san serif would be beautiful.

Thanks for you comments and opinions.

i've tried with many san serif font, the one that fitest the best was Myriad Light, but it's way too much used.
i had opinion to some IRL frends basically they say it is utopy to want people understand/recognyse the technology
with a logo, and the best way is to make an animation with a finger that create the cross by touching an drag
a vector to the final position wich is the logo.

With Helvetica and a shorter arrow

Thierry, for what it's worth - I don't like it at all.

Small arrows on the cross make it look busy (that not even getting into it looking like a game console control buttons). They are a decoration that adds nothing to the logo, and creates scalability problems. The big arrow and cross combination feels forced and geometrically unbalanced. Rather than creating a feeling of something dynamic the arrow simply "sticks out".

The type looks foreign to the mark - the mark is bold and fleshy, and the type is anorexic. Also the black/white treatment is visually disturbing. The capitalization, the dot, the colors - there is just too much going on for a simple line of text.

Just look at your own personal logo. It is head and shoulders above this one. Perhaps consider making just a wordmark and incorporating Swiss Cross into it ?

Thanks Alex, i like your honesty very much and you critisism is very constructive, that worth gold. i totally agree with the scalability problems and was not sure about that move of adding the small arrow to make it look more like a control crosspad.

Concerning the arrow that stick out, i have friends who like it a lot. but i will forseek for other directions. i have time, now is holliday and i will communicate about this in mid september something like that.
For now i have to step back few weeks on this project, i have a font to do for a client (and i'm as excited than i'm terrorized by this work, because it's my first font)

just some trials to simplyfy the typo

Just playing with a geometry, here's a couple of pointy versions that don't include explicit arrow. Type-wise, have you tried using small caps ? Something to look at if you haven't.

HO! i love your first one so much, can i use this design as basis ?

By all means.

Lefty! I told you days ago to ditch the stem of the arrow and just use a triangle.
I get no respect around here. :)

Alaskan, i'm so sorry :) i have tried with a straight triangle, not a curved one and in another project i had the same rounded triangle but with a stem. when i saw the epsilicon project it made 1+1 in my head. i never tries the geometry approach generally, i don't know why? i have to read again my Frutiger's books seems to need it.

I'm in love with the project with the VAG rounded font (i think it's the first time i ever use this font) and with the dot not the color.
A friend insist for i post a project with hand/calligraphy font, so it's for him. ho it's just fonts and logos, have not ajusted all that.

So, what do you thing, is it going good ?

Ok...I think you're getting closer. Have you tried thinning the strokes of the + to allow more room for a bolder arrow/triangle? Right now, it looks a lot like the red cross logo, but I suspect thinning out the + strokes would solve that problem, too. I might try some fonts that match the weight of the + sign (after thinning it down, of course.)

Yes, I like the dot better than the color change. The script is all wrong, and the VAG has definite promise. VAG is producing a weird optical illusion, however, where the V looks tilted; it's as if the i has a magnetic tip and it's pulling that side of the V down. Or maybe somebody slipped me decaf this morning....?

"Have you tried thinning the strokes of the + to allow more room for a bolder arrow/triangle? Right now, it looks a lot like the red cross logo"
Um, I thought it was supposed to be a Swiss cross. It's not gonna be that if he thins the strokes more. It might actually already be slightly on the thin side. In the original Swiss cross, every "arm" has a proportion of 7:6 (one sixth longer than wide – cf. Wikipedia).

Yep, I forgot about the Swiss angle -- but, I wonder, is adding an arrow enough to make it recognizable as an original logo?

i'm just passign by:
hi altaira, nice seeing you here :)

i will not have this kind of problems, because it's not a brand, that will be never registred or trademarked.
it's just the name of a technology with a logo. If it were to be trademarked i probably have to find a name more original than virualtouch. The goals of this logo is to try to input information about the tech, when you know it - a way to help remember it - if possible show that the tech have some depth and help remember the origin of the technology, Switzerland, and yes, make it pro.

To my opinion i have found what i need with that one

the second arrow help to see the first one and add some complexity (and there is some kind of wind effect). i love the way the negative space of the first arrow show somehow an angle symbol
i think i can't go bolder with the font, it loose too much (how to say that....) elegance? i have elegents solutions in this patent for tricky problems.
The only problems i forsee is the usage (or not) on white background, because
in red, the logo looks more like red-cross than swissmade.

just some trial to see how it lost the swissmade with thinner lines

for people that lives like me at 2am i say good night.

I really like your large sample. Simple, elegant, says it all. I'd say you have a winner. :-)

As hinted above, I would definitely not do the thinner cross – it doesn't say "Swiss" anymore I think – do you agree? (Or it looks like it's trying to say "Swiss" but is wrong.)
So as to how it looks on white, I would definitely prefer the ones in your post of 28.Jun.2009 7.25am.
BTW, I think you should have a black and white version too, you might need it.

Good night! :-) (I'm fiddling with a logo too…)

What if you double the size of curvy arrow and position it so that its tip sits where the tip of a second arrow is now ? This could balance the mark a bit better , and also extend the notion of movement to the cross as a whole.