German Court Finds Apple's 'Slide To Unlock' Patent Invalid 120
New submitter anderzole writes "Germany's Federal Patent Court on Thursday invalidated all of Apple's claims for its slide-to-unlock patent. They death blow for Apple's slide to unlock patent was likely a Swedish phone called the Neonode N1m that launched well before the iPhone and featured its own slide to unlock implementation. The N1m was released in 2005 while Apple's own patent for slide to unlock wasn't filed until December of 2005."
neonode info (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Tj-KS2kfIr0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonode
Re:neonode info (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:neonode info (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:neonode info (Score:5, Funny)
It offends the Apple faithful. It is heretical. They're going to be a little touchy until Apple invents 'widgets' in iOS 7.
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It offends the Apple faithful. It is heretical. They're going to be a little touchy until Apple invents 'widgets' in iOS 7.
Or, given their track record, do you mean, "until Apple 'invents' widgets in iOS 7."?
[ BTW, that would be "iWidgets." ]
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[ BTW, that would be "iWidgets." ]
I'm hoping Nintendo beats them to the punch with Wii Widgets...
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I'm hoping Nintendo beats them to the punch with Wii Widgets...
Wii Menu has supported a rough equivalent of Android "widgets" since 3.0, where channels can show text from the WiiConnect24 service in their banners. News Channel, for example, shows scrolling headlines.
Apple faithful mod anything anti-Apple down (Score:4, Insightful)
You see it in any thread discussing Apple. Anything that reflects badly on Apple, no matter how true and accurate, gets down modded. Usually there are more than enough upmods to offset it, but it happens.
There are Apple fanboys that just cannot, will not, accept that Apple has every done anything wrong, every been anything but 100% innovative, etc. So they just to Apple's defense at every opportunity. Same thing with your post, same thing that is likely to happen to my post. They'll "defend" Apple by trying to silence people who say things unflattering.
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It is wrong to imply they are Apple 'fanboys', this is insulting to 'fanyboys' all over. They are paid 'PR' hacks and trolls, paid to lie, paid to attack and paid to mod to set guidelines add to that Apple employees who are fully aware of Apple B$ and like any fad how vulnerable the bubble is to deflating.
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I dunno dude, all I hear over most of the internet is constant Apple bashing. This is from sites like this all the way to Wall Street. So this notion that there's some conspiracy by Apple to do all this PR sounds like complete bullshit. At a minimum, you would have to say they're completely incompetent at it because almost all the news I hear nowadays about Apple is completely negative. So, wanna try again?
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Apple did it for years, if fact nigh on a decade, what comes around goes around, it's called karma, "wanna try again", sure, Apple marketdroids suck professional trolls that flood every forum it's endlessly annoying. Seriously individuals run around wanting to defend one of the richest companies on earth, why, because they feel sorry for them or they believe the B$ marketing about those overpriced 'i' products, give me a break. What genuine individuals will waste their time defending corporations in this a
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Do you have a source for this decade long onslaught that was initiated by Apple's PR folks? You also still don't get it...at all. The vast majority of the press is very against Apple these days. Also, just because you hate Apple doesn't mean others have to.
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I'm not saying you're wrong, but do not underestimate the nutjob factor, either.
It is sad but true that there are people having such a low sense of self-worth that they're compelled to validate themselves by identifying with some One True Group to the point of exclusion of logic and reason, should they conflict with OTG dogma.
I've noticed, though, that Apple seem especially good at inspiring these sorts of followers.
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It's a form of tribal behaviour, you can see it all over, whether about football teams or political parties or products or whatever, same exact instinct. That people can't objectively weigh up the pros and cons of any given product objectively and make decisions on that basis is baffling to me, but I'm no psychologist...
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Yeah, the tribal thing, exactly.
Adolescent males and those who've never quite grown out of that mindset seem to be the most militant ones.
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It's a perception thing I guess. But other than the tech sites all media seemed much more sympathetic to Apple than Samsung in their court case.
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Now that is sick. It looks like a hot dog that someone put in the microwave too long and it exploded. [pukes]
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Now Apple should pay 1/10th of it's value (Score:5, Interesting)
Now Apple should pay 1/10th of it's value as a penalty.
Result: no more stupid patents filled by thieves.
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I think the idea was for Apple to pay 1/10 of the companies worth not the patents.
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Re:Now Apple should pay 1/10th of it's value (Score:4, Insightful)
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The problem is the patents would just be shipped out to 3rd party companies with no real value, thus nothing real to pay in the event of a loss.
And the general solution to that sort of thing, is to abolish the "limited-liability company". If you own stock, you should have at least some partial responsibility for what the company do. As a owner, you get profits when the company does well. So you should get punishments when the company breaks the law as well. After all, those who own a company, have power to decide what it does.
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As a small share holder you have zero to no say in what the company you invest in does, it would be unfair to punish them more than the value of their shares.
Face it for public companies a lot of people are just investing in some unit trust and don't even invest directly in the company. I don't mind being held accountable for my actions or even loosing up to some predetermined amount of money if a company fails. But the possibly of loosing everything based on some stupid decision some CEO made in a company
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You're asserting that all opinions are equal, that because there is not a unanimous opinion that an opinion can't be a binding legal obligation -- allow me correct you there. A court's opinion is more important in this case, it has ruled the patent to be without merit. Fines to dissuade further abuse of the patent system are in order.
While systemic changes to reduce the ability for abuse are needed, this isn't a time for better planning -- it's about responding to abuse that has already happened. You don
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The onus lies on the patent applicant to do prior art searches.
And in this case, it's not even a question of prior art - everyone knows that Apple's actions are a deliberate troll attempt to impede the viability of competitors. That in itself is a crime.
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It really is? Or should it only be? Serious question. I don't know American laws.
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It really is? Or should it only be? Serious question. I don't know American laws.
What do American laws have to do with this? The summary clearly states this was a German court.
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American laws have all to do with it.
The patent was original filed in america. Then by "international contract" it gets more or less automatically accepted in germany/europe if you simply file for it and giving the american patent number.
So, unless no one objects afterwards, which obviously happend in this case, the patent becomes active.
OTOH if Apple had filed for the patent originally in germany it would have been rejected straight away as user interactions and software implementations are not patentable
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It's not a crime in law. That doesn't mean that it's not a crime!
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It really is? Or should it only be? Serious question. I don't know American laws.
"deliberate..attempt(s) to impede the viability of competitors."
In American law, I believe this would fall under Anti-Trust laws. Just because you aren't a monopoly(yet), doesn't mean that you aren't doing illegal things to attempt to create one. (Like, I dunno.. suing competitors into oblivion over something that is obviously prior art, or non-innovative(Can anyone say: rounded corners?))
Though, I could be wrong. IANAL.
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Up to this point you could reasonably argue that Apple was just a patent bully. Their design patents were ridiculous but at least they genuinely believed that they were enforceable. Now they have crossed into the realm of being a blatant troll, trying to abuse a patent that anyone can see has both prior art and is too obvious to patent in the first place (which is probably why it wasn't patented by the original inventor).
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Wrong! You don't get it. Apple is the epitome of evil in the world and there will never be world peace for as long as they exist. You're just the typical Apple fanboi.
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How about they pay what they were seeking?
Re: Now Apple should pay 1/10th of it's value (Score:2)
This would just cause everyone to isolate their patents in holding companies.
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An eye for an eye.... an eye squared.
Invalidating 10 good patents as chosen by the competitors would be more fitting IMHO
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Just going though all of apples patients in the hopes of finding 10 good ones would probably be cost prohibitive.
Just a joke I have no Idea how may patients apple actually have, but I would like to know
Where's the code to implement it? (Score:1)
Hello Slashdotters, I'm looking for the code to implement features of this now invalidated patent. I know we have hackers who can output this code fast and I know I'm not alone.
Re:Where's the code to implement it? (Score:5, Funny)
if no touch this frame: position = minimum
elif touch this frame and no touch last frame and not within 24px of minimum: wait for release
else: position = X coordinate of touch point
if position == maximum: return "activated"
Re:It's sad (Score:5, Insightful)
That something like this even comes to court.
What's sad is something like this was awarded a patent. I have two (physical) slide to unlock buttons on the base of my laptop. Why were they awarded a patent for doing the same in software?!? How much time, money, and effort has that stupid decision sucked out of the numerous justice systems where this raised its head?
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I agree. Look and feel patents should not have be granted in the first place.
I am sure that there are many more pieces of software that did the same thing, just not on a "phone".
Long before 2005, there were software installers that required you to scroll a license agreement to the bottom before it unlocked the button that allowed you to proceed with the install.
What kind of widget control do you use to scroll a document with? A type of slider of course.
Re: It's sad (Score:2)
Re: It's sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
No. Patents are not like trademarks. If you don't defend them you don't lose them. Maybe Apple is forced to patent silly stuff. Nobody would complain if this was all they do. But nobody forces Apple to be an ******* and actually use the silly patents to sue other companies. This makes them the bad guys.
Re: It's sad (Score:4, Interesting)
"Problem is if apple didnt patent it someone else would have filed a patent years later and sued apple
Yes."
No.
Very few use patents offensively. Apple is among the few worst offenders. Furthermore, patenting this "years later" would clearly be invalid.
Apple IS the patent problem, not the victim of it.
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Don't be a fucking retard. Companies sue other companies for patent infringement all of the time. Apple is hardly the inventor of the concept and at least they use the technologies that they sue over (unlike patent trolls).
Laches (Score:3)
Patents are not like trademarks. If you don't defend them you don't lose them.
Did you forget about estoppel by laches?
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Did you forget about estoppel by laches?
That doesn't make you lose the patent. It just means you can't sue someone under it. It still works defensively.
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The claim was that Apple had to patent this to keep from being victimized by a troll later. If true, estoppel wouldn't be a worry for them.
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Very few companies abuse patents as much as Apple, although there are a few NPEs that are in the ballpark.
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They could have filed it as a "defensive" patent, and I doubt most people would have cared. But they're using it for offense, which is what makes them the bad guy.
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So who put the gun to Apple's head and made them actually sue over it?
Re:It's sad (Score:5, Interesting)
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Apple's applies to a cover which uses liquid crystals to block most of the light waves until the slide mechanism is triggered alters the crystals such that the user gains visual access to the screen.
Can't you see how revolutionary Apple's idea is!
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Some many million odd years ago there was an ape like creature sliding some dirt to reveal the precursor of the potato.
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I'm fairly sure the Sumerians already had slide-to-unlock on their doors. They even had their own version of the tablet after all, the veritable clayPad [google.com].
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What I want to know is... (Score:4, Interesting)
How did this nonsense patent even get granted in the first place? I've worked on getting patents filed, and we usually meet with all sorts of resistance even when there is actually something to the patent. Who is getting paid off to grant nonsense patents like this?
Re:What I want to know is... (Score:5, Informative)
They do not have sufficient resources to evaluate the content, just the format. The two are unrelated.
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This is untrue. Examiners do consider content it is in their domain to do so. There's just no assurance that they get it right.
Saying that the burden is on the filer to research prior art is like saying it's the fox's job to guard the henhouse.
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Saying that the burden is on the filer to research prior art is like saying it's the fox's job to guard the henhouse.
I thought that was the design.
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Spoken like someone who has obviously never been involved in getting a patent in any capacity in his entire life....
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Much of the process is to make sure the paperwork is correct, not the content.
Neither the patent filer (Apple) nor the patent examiner is psychic and could not have known (reasonably) about the prior art of "slide to unlock" in Neonode N1m.
Even without the Neonode prior art, this patent should be considered invalid as the mechanism is in widespread use: laptops, windows, doors, suitcases etc. employ slide to unlock in the physical world. Just because you show that mechanism graphically does not make it a patent worthy.
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It is absolutely the examiner's job. The examiner is to make sure the patent meets all of the criteria including novelty.
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Tenacity (Score:3)
The USPTO is more or less a "deny first, accept later" kind of place. They deny patents out of hand when they are first filed. So, modify, refile, modify, refile, etc, etc eventually you get one. Of course that is easy to do for a big company, not so feasible for a small guy.
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Almost certainly it's a revolving door type of process rather than outright bribery ... ie. you need a firm with lots of ex USPTO staff with inside connections (waiting for their chance to hit the revolving door).
Apple is just another Electronics Company (Score:4, Interesting)
I know Apple are Patent rapists, but should we care. The iPhone is still the second most popular phone range in the US but it is doing badly everywhere else. I have seen this video...I have seen this prior art mentioned...now 6 years later its invalidated...in one country, Android have already worked around this patent, and pretty nifty it is too, we even have some very fun alternative unlocking methods including fingertips and facial recognition.
Why are we not discussing the great technology from other manufacturing companies like IR being reintroduced to phones...or waterpoofing phones, or the ever growing screen size. Hell even compare two screen phones DS style to electronic paper/led screen phones. Lets discuss relevant electronics companies that innovate, in fact lets talk about that technology.
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ROFL...yeah, that's why there are tons of other companies that are making over $13 billion in profits per quarter. It's so easy to come up with this stuff! Nice analysis, genius.
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Gee, I couldn't help noticing that you managed to avoid addressing a single point made in the post you were replying to. Care to try again?
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I directly addressed the point. Apparently reading comprehension is not one of your strong suits. Go back to high school.
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The only reason Apple makes that much money is that they're okay at making products but they're marketing geniuses. They've managed to brainwash the public into believing that they're somehow being "cool" for owning an Apple product.
Re: Apple is just another Electronics Company (Score:2)
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Better yet, try it with your own iPhone.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Well yeah, on one hand it's just a trivial UI feature that isn't really necessary. But on the other hand it's about the anti-competitive business tactics of one of the worlds biggest corporations that drove one of the most popular phone makers to the edge of bankruptcy and attempts to stifle the healthy competition which makes the innovations you mentioned viable in the first place.
There's a joke here somehwere (Score:2)
How many bytes can you take out of an Apple?
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
The funny point ... (Score:2)
... I read in a German article was that Apple was quoted saying that that patent wasn't important for them ... yeah, right, which is why you patented it and used it to sue Android makers ...
How do we fix this? (Score:2)
I know a lot of people consider patents "broken" for one reason or another, and here is yet another example where it seems the patent should never have been granted in the first place, let alone been something Apple could use to bully other companies.
So, I agree that patents are broken and easily/often abused. Now, what is the "fix"? Should the patent office be held to task for granting these things when obvious prior art exists? Or should the barrier for going after a supposed patent infringement be rai
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Ditching design, software and method patents entirely would be a good start ... nothing good has ever come out of their protection.
I'm no patent expert but (Score:2)
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That has got to be the lousiest Markov chain yet posted. Put some effort in.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain [wikipedia.org]
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJUuxouy1Fg [youtube.com]