The long-running dispute between Apple and Samsung continues, with an appeals court today handing the Cupertino-based company a defeat by invalidating two Apple patents and ruling a third had not been infringed by Samsung (via Bloomberg). The ruling, which covers Apple patents related to slide-to-unlock, autocorrect, and interactive phone number features, also threw out the original $119.6 million in damages Apple had been awarded in the case.
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In addition, Apple's guilty verdict from nearly two years ago has been upheld: the company still has to pay $158,400 for violating Samsung's patent describing an "apparatus for recording and reproducing digital image and speech." Regarding the three operating system features Apple attempted to validate, the court ruled that Apple's claim for Samsung's patent infringement was "invalid."
In this case, Apple claimed that Samsung infringed patents for the slide-to-unlock feature, autocorrect and a way to detect phone numbers that can then be touched to make phone calls. The autocorrect patent is invalid and the detection patent wasn’t infringed, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in an opinion posted on its electronic docket. The court upheld the jury’s verdict that two other Apple patents, for universal search and background syncing, weren’t infringed.
In a separate court battle over patent infringements, last December Samsung decided to submit an appeal to the Supreme Court in one final effort to avoid paying $548 million to Apple. Just this month, Apple attempted to convince the Supreme Court to deny Samsung's appeal in the five-year-old case, claiming that the South Korean company was simply attempting to prolong the case even further following the announcement of the settlement.
Top Rated Comments
The message is, don't use weak patents to try to stifle competition, because those patents are likely to be found invalid upon appeal to more experienced courts.
More than a dozen judges around the world already invalidated the slide-to-unlock patent. The only judge who had not, was Judge Koh in California.
The hot links patent was likewise something that should never have been granted, since various applications had such a feature for years beforehand.
A warrant is a legal request.
If you had a child or little sister kidnapped, and the FBI had the kidnapper's phone with evidence that could save her, and the courts gave the FBI a warrant, then you'd rightfully be all for Apple doing their damnedest to unlock it right away.
Samsung had to do their own engineering to implement the features in these cases. No code copying involved. Ditto for Apple in the many patent cases where they're accused of infringement.
You are confused about what software patent infringement is almost always about. It's not about copying an idea, because those cannot be patented. It's about coming up with similar methods, which is common as dirt.
The recent Supreme Court decision limiting some types of software patents should help.
So which is it?
If your patents are ruled invalid in a court of law, there is nothing to enforce.
But Apple will probably blow 20x that much to try and get it overturned.