This could be bad news for Apple. The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has been reexamining one of the Cupertino company's multi-touch patents, and it's ruled that none of the 20 claims involved are valid, Foss Patents reports.
The patent is pretty broad, covering interaction with touchscreen devices, which now account for the bulk of what Apple does. The decision isn't final, so it could be nothing comes of it. But it's not Apple's first multi-touch patent to come under fire.
The USPTO came to a similar decision about Apple's rubber banding bounce effect in late October. That patent covers the effect of the page 'bouncing back' when you scroll past where it ends on a touchscreen device. That finding is also subject to appeal.
If both are ruled to be invalid, this could open a can of multi-touch worms. The most recent patent was used in Apple's court case with Motorola last month, while the previous rubber band one was one of the sticks Apple used to beat Samsung down in its $1 billion victory. It looks like we could be in for a whole host of court-based shenanigans.
The late Steve Jobs is listed as the chief inventor of this patent, which is the latest to be ruled invalid. It's previously been referred to as "the Steve Jobs patent".
Many patents labelled invalid at this stage do go on to survive. But, as Foss Patents notes, "it would be a mistake to underestimate the significance of a first Office action. Also, a complete rejection of all claims of a given patent is potentially more devastating than one affecting only some claims."
Will Apple win out in the end? How do you feel about Apple going after another $700 million from Samsung? Let me know in the comments, or over on Facebook.
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Comments 4
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Jack N Fran Farrell 8 December, 2012 14:39
Gee maybe Apple should have added Bionking sound effects or Micky Mouse Ears to mark its IP like Disney.
Jack N Fran Farrell 8 December, 2012 14:49
Time for an Apple pep-rally, bring on Balmer, bring on the Stanford Band ... no they might scoff at the wrong side. I know bring on the USC Marching Band 'Fight On' and their horse to add his contribution to the next legal brief.
anonymous 8 December, 2012 15:03
Sanity prevails
anonymous 8 December, 2012 19:46
Having worked as a software developer for the past 8 years I feel I know enough to comment about the nature of development and the idea of patenting functionality.
All software owes to open source and colaberation from the binary/machine code to the higher level languages used for application development and user interfaces. Not forgetting to mention all the transfer protocol languages used in client server communications. We all stand on the shoulders of giants.
I think copyright of a products look is essential to enable companies to establish a brand. This is different to patenting functionality. I believe there should be no patenting of algorithms or software functionality. It is to my mind hypocritical for any developer or company to believe that they can be considered the innovator of that algorithm. As I said before we are just standing on the shoulders of giants.
I might use software in our product that has to be paid for, this is fair enough to save on development time you pay somebody else who has already done the hard work. But if as a company we need to create that software in-house then we should be allowed to do that. So long as we don't copy the code there should not be a problem.
We have all benefitted from the openness of development in the past. Let's not ruin it now just so some uninspiring lawyer can earn some fat amount of cash for stagnating progress.