Apple scores another victory in patent infringement fight against Samsung

[Nineshadow]

Apple and Samsung have been fighting a patent infringement battle in court for a few years now and the matter is far from done, if recent moves are any indication both companies are willing to see the matter through to the end and don’t appear to be under pressure to settle this as soon as possible. There have been victories and losses on both sides and this week it’s Apple that scores a victory, today an appeals court in the United States ruled that Samsung should have been banned from incorporating several patented Apple features in its devices and that the lower court erred when it did not do so.

 

It was determined by a jury in May last year that Samsung had infringed on three Apple patents, one related to quick links, slide-to-unlock and one for auto word correction. Apple had then moved the court to ban Samsung’s products which had those patented features but the judge said that monetary damages were enough to make up for the harm done to Apple. It was a ruling that the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit can’t get behind. “The right to exclude competitors from using one’s property rights is important,” Judge Kimberly A. Moore writes in the majority opinion. “And the right to maintain exclusivity — a hallmark and crucial guarantee of patent rights deriving from the Constitution itself — is likewise important.” That ruling has now been vacated by the higher court and sent back to the lower court for reconsideration.

 

If Apple’s motion to ban devices is granted then Samsung might have to change certain things about smartphones and tablets that have features that infringe on Apple patents. However given that most of those devices are no longer being sold anyway a ban wouldn’t really do much good now, Samsung has already said that there’s just one current device now that uses a feature from an Apple patent involved in this case. Samsung isn’t going to accept this quietly though, it is going to have the full Court of Appeals review today’s decision, adding that “We want to reassure our millions of loyal customers that all of our flagship smartphones, which are wanted and loved by American consumers, will remain for sale and available for customer service support in the US.”

 

SOURCE

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Amazing that this writer is reporting this miscarriage of justice in the US Court System and says nothing about the fact that the Highest Court in EU’s Patent Division, just delivered a final decision on the invalidity of Apple’s “Slide to Unlock” patent there. Reaffirming the lower court’s 2013 determination establishing Neonode’s N1 phone Slide to Unlock Patent as Prior Art. Therefore Apple’s patent is finally Null and Void in Germany’s Highest Appeals court ruling!!!

Quote from Tom’s Hardware report;
“Apple has also had little to gain from these patent battles over the years, and it has even garnered the company the image of being the “bully” of the smartphone industry. That characterization, unfair or not, is because it appears that Apple doesn’t necessarily want to “protect its intellectual property” as much as it wants to throw its weight around. Many of these cases show Apple has been using some obviously trivial or invalid patents to carry on these fights. For many of Apple’s so-called “inventions,” there was already prior art, which means the company should never have been granted those patents in the first place.

However, the main blame really should go to the U.S. Patent Office, which has a week to verify the validity of patents, and very low standards for approving them. The latter creates a two-fold problem: 1) Weak patents are granted to companies, which they can then use to abuse these trivial patents against other companies and stifle real innovation, and 2) the USPTO becomes even more backed-up by weak patent applications, which means even less time will be spent verifying how strong the patent applications actually are.

If the USPTO drastically increased its rejection rate, while still charging applicants for each application, the quality of the patents could rise, as wasting tens of thousands of dollars on rejected applications would disincentivize many. The USPTO would also be much freer to check how real the “inventions” described in the applications are, which should lead to even higher quality patents being given to the companies that actually deserve them.” End Quote! ……and then this author Headlines this bogus CrApplelahhhh….. as a Victory for Apple??? haha…. right!!! lol….

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The patents strike again...
 

[themaniac]

wouldn't the slide to unlock and word auto correct, be on the android side and not the samsung side? if so, shouldn't google be the one in the patent war?

[Sauron]

What did people expect from a jury who knows nothing about tech? For them, if it looks similar, it's copied. Can you even imagine how many patent lawsuits microsoft could carry out against other office software by that logic?

[Sauron]

wouldn't the slide to unlock and word auto correct, be on the android side and not the samsung side? if so, shouldn't google be the one in the patent war?

 

The thing is, none of this makes any sense. It's software, it's not patent infringement unless the code is close to identical. You'd think that would be common sense.

[TroubleKlef]

wouldn't the slide to unlock and word auto correct, be on the android side and not the samsung side? if so, shouldn't google be the one in the patent war?

 

It might be a particular way that Samsung implemented it in TouchWiz.

[themaniac]

The thing is, none of this makes any sense. It's software, it's not patent infringement unless the code is close to identical. You'd think that would be common sense.

yeah, but still shouldn't it be google and not samsung thats fighting apple

[themaniac]

It might be a particular way that Samsung implemented it in TouchWiz.

ok

[Nineshadow]

wouldn't the slide to unlock and word auto correct, be on the android side and not the samsung side? if so, shouldn't google be the one in the patent war?

Yes...but Apple only went against Samsung. They don't have any reason to go against Google.

 

@Sauron

Apple has the patent of a concept, "slide to unlock". Quote from the patent :

 

1. A method of unlocking a hand-held electronic device, the device including a touch-sensitive display, the method comprising: detecting a contact with the touch-sensitive display at a first predefined location corresponding to an unlock image; continuously moving the unlock image on the touch-sensitive display in accordance with movement of the contact while continuous contact with the touch screen is maintained, wherein the unlock image is a graphical, interactive user-interface object with which a user interacts in order to unlock the device; and unlocking the hand-held electronic device if the moving the unlock image on the touch-sensitive display results in movement of the unlock image from the first predefined location to a predefined unlock region on the touch-sensitive display.

The thing is that this patent has already been proved to be null, although that was done in the EU.

[Sauron]

yeah, but still shouldn't it be google and not samsung thats fighting apple

 

Google doesn't make smartphones, suing them is not in apple's interest.

[themaniac]

Google doesn't make smartphones, suing them is not in apple's interest.

but google owns android which samsung uses and android has the slide to unlock thing

Yes...but Apple only went against Samsung.

 

@Sauron

Apple has the patent of a concept, "slide to unlock". Quote from the patent :

The thing is that this patent has already been proved to be null, although that was done in the EU.

ok

[Sauron]

Apple has the patent of a concept, "slide to unlock". Quote from the patent :

The thing is that this patent has already been proved to be null, although that was done in the EU.

 

I know, but it is blatantly bullcrap. You can't patent a vague idea. It's as if I patented "a bunch of letters in a specific order" but neglected to specify the order, then sued every book author in the country.

[Dabombinable]

I know, but it is blatantly bullcrap. You can't patent a vague idea. It's as if I patented "a bunch of letters in a specific order" but neglected to specify the order, then sued every book author in the country.

This is where Apple should literally be told to get fucked. 

[patrickjp93]

I know, but it is blatantly bullcrap. You can't patent a vague idea. It's as if I patented "a bunch of letters in a specific order" but neglected to specify the order, then sued every book author in the country.

 

Yes you can. It's called a general-purpose form of an algorithm, or the pseudo code of it. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and others have a ton of patented algorithms that are only allowed visibility to themselves and officers of the patent systems to prevent competition from stealing or patenting their work.

 

If you have an algorithm which works on a collection, that encompasses lists, arrays, queues, sets, and graphs. You can patent 500 variants of an algorithm or process with 1 piece of paper.

 

The thing is, none of this makes any sense. It's software, it's not patent infringement unless the code is close to identical. You'd think that would be common sense.

 

It doesn't have to be near identical. Hell a 20% code match at my school starts an investigation of code sharing if it's for a homework assignment or project. Above 30 and you're guilty by default.

[Sauron]

Yes you can. It's called a general-purpose form of an algorithm, or the pseudo code of it. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and others have a ton of patented algorithms that are only allowed visibility to themselves and officers of the patent systems to prevent competition from stealing or patenting their work.

 

If you have an algorithm which works on a collection, that encompasses lists, arrays, queues, sets, and graphs. You can patent 500 variants of an algorithm or process with 1 piece of paper.

 

 

It doesn't have to be near identical. Hell a 20% code match at my school starts an investigation of code sharing if it's for a homework assignment or project. Above 30 and you're guilty by default.

 

this

 

 

1. A method of unlocking a hand-held electronic device, the device including a touch-sensitive display, the method comprising: detecting a contact with the touch-sensitive display at a first predefined location corresponding to an unlock image; continuously moving the unlock image on the touch-sensitive display in accordance with movement of the contact while continuous contact with the touch screen is maintained, wherein the unlock image is a graphical, interactive user-interface object with which a user interacts in order to unlock the device; and unlocking the hand-held electronic device if the moving the unlock image on the touch-sensitive display results in movement of the unlock image from the first predefined location to a predefined unlock region on the touch-sensitive display.

 

is NOT pseudocode. Or an algorythm. It's a vague idea. Not definite enough to make a patent out of it.

[TheMechEngineer]

It's funny, I was literally watching this video right now as I brought up this thread.

 

[patrickjp93]

this

 

 

is NOT pseudocode. Or an algorythm. It's a vague idea. Not definite enough to make a patent out of it.

Yes it is. It's just not the mathematical style you're used to. This would hold up in any European country, the U.S., and China. This is specific. It doesn't tell you positioning or proportion, but it is an algorithm. It is a step by step process you can follow and have people produce very consistent results.

[Nineshadow]

this

 

 

is NOT pseudocode. Or an algorythm. It's a vague idea. Not definite enough to make a patent out of it.

Actually that is an algorithm.

Making an omelette  could be an algorithm , for example

1.Take 1-2 eggs out of the fridge if they aren't already

2. Crack the eggs

3. ...

and so on.

Yes you can. It's called a general-purpose form of an algorithm, or the pseudo code of it. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and others have a ton of patented algorithms that are only allowed visibility to themselves and officers of the patent systems to prevent competition from stealing or patenting their work.

 

If you have an algorithm which works on a collection, that encompasses lists, arrays, queues, sets, and graphs. You can patent 500 variants of an algorithm or process with 1 piece of paper.

 

 

It doesn't have to be near identical. Hell a 20% code match at my school starts an investigation of code sharing if it's for a homework assignment or project. Above 30 and you're guilty by default.

Still, the "slide to unlock" has been proved to be prior art , and thus the patent should be nullified.

It's been proved in the EU , and not in the US though.

[tLEO]

But Apple is ok with Huawei having Force Touch in their phones? Huh.

[Sauron]

Yes it is. It's just not the mathematical style you're used to. This would hold up in any European country, the U.S., and China. This is specific. It doesn't tell you positioning or proportion, but it is an algorithm. It is a step by step process you can follow and have people produce very consistent results.

 

except the european court called bs.

[patrickjp93]

Actually that is an algorithm.

Still, the "slide to unlock" has been proved to be prior art , and thus nullified the patent.

Which is a separate issue, but thank you. People outside the world of higher academia in mathematics and computer science really don't know how it simultaneously takes so much and so little to have a proof and/or something concrete enough to present in a paper or have patented.

[patrickjp93]

 

except the european court called bs.

And a higher court shot the lower one down.

 

 

But Apple is ok with Huawei having Force Touch in their phones? Huh.

Huawei bought a license from Apple to use it. Keep up pls.

[Nineshadow]

except the european court called bs.

They didn't all it bs.

They said that there was prior art, the concept of the patent had already existed when the patent was awarded. Prior Art nullifies the patent.

[tLEO]

Huawei bought a license from Apple to use it. Keep up pls.

Oh, did they? Ok, didn't know that. Thanks for the info.

[thebennyboy]

Good to see the American courts siding with an American company, stinks of BS to me... So does that "patent". Samsung should just tell Apple to fuck off and not pay. Samsung is based in South Korea, what they going to do, send in bailiffs? lol.

 

Was already thrown out by the European courts.

 

 

 

More recently, an ITC judge found that Samsung violated four Apple patents, including the flat front face with wider borders at the top and bottom, the lozenge-shaped speaker about the display screen; the translucent images for applications displayed on the screen, and the device's ability to detect when a headset is plugged in. - See more at: http://www.dailytech.com/Samsung+Reports+74+Billion+Profit+Sells+563+Million+Phones/article29044.htm#sthash.xDeeguU6.dpuf

 

Source: http://www.dailytech.com/Samsung+Reports+74+Billion+Profit+Sells+563+Million+Phones/article29044.htm

 

So Apple has patented:

• Flat phone front (lol?)
• Speaker grill
• Screen icons
• "Plugging in headphones"

 

How the fuck did Apple get granted ANY of those patents?!

[Daegun]

And a higher court shot the lower one down.

'and says nothing about the fact that the Highest Court in EU’s Patent Division, just delivered a final decision on the invalidity of Apple’s “Slide to Unlock” patent there. Reaffirming the lower court’s 2013 determination establishing Neonode’s N1 phone Slide to Unlock Patent as Prior Art.'

 

I think you've got it backwards there. The higher court reaffirmed the lower courts decision.