This lawsuit happened in Germany, where the court ruled that Apple's patent was invalid since it failed to meet one of the requirements under the patent laws of Europe. In Europe, in order for software to be patent-eligible, they must solve a technical problem with technical means. Thus, the court ruled that a sliding gesture to unlock a phone was not a technical innovation.
I know how different countries have totally different aspects on certain things, but I didn't know that this was the case for patents as well. In the United States, "everything under the Sun made by Man" is patent-eligible, but this certainly is not the case in Europe. How interesting.
The author mentions in the beginning of the article that this was a "win" for Samsung and Google's Motorola Mobility. I'm not too sure how this will affect those companies' products though. It seems like they are doing completely fine in the United States, where they have come up with alternative ways for users to unlock their smartphones. I'm just curious to see whether changes, if any, will be made to their products sold in Europe.
Interesting, because I really thought they did come up with the slide-to-lock idea and it actually seems like something that should be protected. As opposed to patents such as their rounded edges, I would think they could be better protected from competitors utilizing the same unlock mechanism they innovated.
ReplyDeleteI was also surprised that the German courts did not uphold Apple's patent. I feel that if this litigation was taking place six or seven years ago Apple may have actually won the case, as this technology was proprietary at one point.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised that Apple filed the slide-to-unlock patent as a technical innovation rather than a design innovation. It probably would hold up as well in court under that standard. If it was filed as a design patent it would have held more ground I believe
ReplyDeleteWe just learned about this in class! I agree with the post before, it is strange that this is a technical patent but as a design patent.
ReplyDeleteI am curious to see if a patent invalidation on something so popular like a slide-to-lock patent will encourage more innovation or will actually hurt Apple. This is why being a closed-source based software like iOS is more detrimental than open-source
ReplyDeleteThe fact that in Germany this patent was invalidated was indeed a major win. I am curious if lawyers in the California case, can use this in their current case.
ReplyDeletePatent Laws in Germany differ drastically from the ones in the US, and I believe that slide-to-unlock feature has a good validation to be patented. However, I agree, it is more a design patent rather than technical.
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