tit for tat | Patent Office Puts Another Nail In An Apple Patent’s Coffin

 

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has told apple that it can non enforce its far-famed “rubber banding” sheer because the frisk, as cool as it might be, is not a novel idea.

The decision manpower Samsung a small victory in its epic IP battle with Apple even if the decision, which the patent office called “final,” is not really final because Apple al some certainly give contest the decision.

“ whatsoevertimes the Central Reexamination Unit reconsiders such ‘final’ decisions. Even if it doesn’t, this ‘final’ rejection can and certainly leave alone be appealed,” Florian Mueller in a blog post explaining the decision, issued previous(a) last week.

The patent in question, ’381, covers the user interface feature where you experience a bounce-back effect upon reaching the end of a list while swiping. The patent office tentatively find out in October 2012 that all 20 claims of the ’381 patent were invalid. Two months later(prenominal) the office tentatively invalidated another key pussy of IP, the “Steve Jobs patent” that covers key multitouch features of iOS, and decided to reexamine a patent covering document scrolling.

Apple has two months to respond (read: appeal) the decision, during which it must turn out the technology described in the patent is different from whatsoever previously patented technology and that there was “an inventive tone of voice” involved in creating the IP.

Samsung submitted the patent office’s most recent decision, made March 29, to the judge presiding over the on-going Apple v. Samsung trial because the jury found 21 Samsung products to break claim 19 of this patent. The jury awarded damages to Apple for the infringement. Some of these damages will be reconsidered in a virgin upcoming trial. Today’s decision holds more tilt than the tentative invalidation of six months ago, so Samsung is likely hoping justice Lucy Koh will take this into consideration as proceedings and appeals hold open in this case.

Once the U.S. PTO comes to a final decision nigh Apple’s appeal, that decision can also be appealed to the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. So we’re bland looking at several more years of Apple and Samsung jockeying for IP supremacy in this case concerning this patent alone.

Materials taken from WIRED