7 ms·
USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung
Rejoice!
- sigzero 14y ago"tentatively" That doesn't sound like a sure thing to me.
- josteink 14y agoIndeed. And until it gets overturned completely, you'll still need a team of lawyers ten times the size of your engineering department before you are allowed to innovate. At least if you operate within US borders. Guess how sexy that is looking these days? (1 billion dollar sexy, if anyone was wondering)
- Shooti 14y agoGood news for Android scrolling if this sticks. This is probably whats keeping Google from implementing the "glass tilt" effect from the stock 4.0/4.1 home screen system wide.
- cremnob 14y agoOr they could just do their own thing.
- felipeko 14y agoI'd argue that Apple is the one needing to do its own thing now. Their patent is being invalidated, that means that what they though it was original is not.
- dangrossman 14y agoThe prior art is also an Apple patent. The judge found that there was no "inventive step" between the prior patent and the new one. That doesn't mean Apple didn't "do its own thing", just that its incremental improvement was not worthy of a new patent.
- felipeko 14y agoOh yes, i read that now. I (kinda) apologize to the parent post.
- Shooti 14y agoThe glass tilt I'm referring to is distinctive from the iOS bounce, yet it seems they're still erring on the side of caution.
- MatthewPhillips 14y agobad for the consumer
- esolyt 14y agoI actually prefer Android's current overscroll effect.
- BenoitEssiambre 14y agoYup. I always found the rubber banding to be kind of an odd way to indicate the end of a scrolling area. The problem is that instead of something indicating unambiguously the end of a view, the movement continues to happen momentarily as if there was more to come and only gradually stops. Users end up not knowing if they botched their finger gesture or if they are actually at a boundary. Even as an experienced user, I sometimes retry pulling a few times to confirm there's nothing more.
- esolyt 14y agoThis is exactly what I dislike about it. Ironically, it makes it more difficult to realize there is no more content.
- emehrkay 14y agoThe rubber band effect makes touch scrolling work. The user knows when they've reached the end. And Apple seems to do this thing where you can zoom out and make whatever really small showing you the boundaries that Android doesn't seem to do. Android can definitely benefit from emulating apple in the scrolling/zooming regard.
- fpgeek 14y agoThis just helps illustrate the absurdity of the US patent system. Samsung and Apple have already been at this for over a year and a half (longer if you count their pre-lawsuit discussions). Now, after we've been through lawsuit filings, discovery, back-and-forth over injunctions and a trial and gotten a verdict... The patent office turns around and says: "On second thought, we shouldn't have issued that patent in the first place.", which itself will be reexamined and appealed and ... adding onto the existing pile of appeals. I happen to think that the patent office's invalidation is correct, but even if you don't... this is no way to run a railroad. Successful reexaminations should be a rare, exceptional case in a properly functioning patent system. Instead, we have case after case turning on them (Oracle v Google, the Lodys reexamination requests, ...). Here's a radical idea: Maybe the patent office should work harder to not grant patents it is likely to invalidate later.
- beedogs 14y ago> The USPTO does not receive any funding from general taxation sources. Rather, the agency is fully funded by the fees paid by patent applicants and patent owners. This is probably a big part of why the USPTO sucks. If they had the resources to hire dozens and dozens of industry experts, and pay them aggressively competitive wages, they could probably fix most of the problems most of us have with the system as a whole.
- dodo53 14y agoThis is why I like the idea (from someone around here I think) that patent owners should state a value of the patent when filing, and fees should be a percent of that value. Then value of patent limits maximum damage for infringement. So the amount of damages that can be sued for depends on the amount of funded attention at USPTO on checking the patent is valid (and patent owners could have the option of increasing stated value later, in which case extra fees would be used to revalidate patent). But I guess the whole culture that the number of patents = amount of innovation in economy = success of USPTO would have to be battled.
- jonknee 14y ago
- chucknelson 14y agoI should have been a lawyer.
- tveita 14y agoThe rubber-band patent was also the patent asserted to make Motorola Mobility recall their phones in Germany. I don't know how these things work, is the patent invalid in Europe now, or must it be investigated separately? Either way I'm guessing this will help their appeal. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/sep/14/motorola-mobility-recall-android-tablets-smartphones http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/sep/14/motorola-mo...
- jeremyjh 14y agoMakes no difference in the EU.
- thomaslutz 14y agoThey should invalidate all patents which are "obvious", let everybody move on to making great products and not waste all those resources in the courtrooms.
- ankitaggarwal 14y agoSad. This is not a generic patent. It only seemed obvious now. Its not something that will stop innovation (as people scream about). A scrollbar implemented without rubber-band effect will do just fine. And why was this never implemented before anyways. There is all this hype that "Apple is Bad because they sued Samsung". But considering everything, they had no other choice legally. They had to make a case on some grounds, and these 5-6 patents were the only patents they can sue on. What would've you done to protect ideas you spent years refining?
- johsoe 14y agoYears refining this overscroll effect?
- ankitaggarwal 14y agoNo. But the design of their products. If you followed the trial, they told the entire process on how they reached the final design of iPhone. It took them years to make it perfect. Taking inspiration is different, and we all know what samsung did for staying in market. LEGALLY, apple had no choice but to take these silly looking patent to the courtroom. Now is the time when we will see real innovation. I don't know why people build so much of hate for big corporates. Samsung is no different. If you see number of patents Samsung holds, you will be stunned. And most of them are something they never even implemented in their software remotely.
- jivatmanx 14y agoI don't begrudge having patent nukes for deterrence purposes. I begrudge using them offensively.
- ankitaggarwal 14y agoSo basically, apple falls in latter. Right?
- johsoe 14y ago
- ToesByNoon 14y agoYup. Everything is "obvious" after Apple does it.
- JimmaDaRustla 14y agoToday was a good day.
- xntrk 14y agoIt seems like maybe they should have looked at this before when the issued the patent, or maybe just maybe before they Apple Vs. Samsung lawsuit about this patent….
- xntrk 14y agoIt seems like maybe they should have looked at this before when the issued the patent, or maybe just maybe before the Apple Vs. Samsung lawsuit about this patent….
- saurik 14y agoSo, one of the patents that was claimed to invalidate this patent is another patent from Apple; does that patent not have any of the same ramifications? (I guess the key claim was #19, and that was also invalidated by the other prior patent?) > ...U.S. Patent No. 7,786,975 on a "continuous scrolling list with acceleration," with named inventors Bas Ording, Scott Forstall, Greg Christie, Stephen O. Lemay and Imran Chaudhri. Assignee: Apple Inc. (Cupertino, CA) Filed: December 23, 2005
- makomk 14y agoWhy should the courts let them have another bite at the apple, though? Apple ought to have known that one of their patents was likely to invalidate the one they'd sued over because they wrote and filed both of them. In fact, in a sensible world the courts ought to take a closer look at why they were trying to patent something for which they themselves had prior art.
- SethMurphy 14y agoWhat if when prior art was found for a patent, the real inventor got the patent, free, starting from the date of the invention, not the filing. This would both reward and protect the innovator and punish the copy cat. NOTE: Let us assume a patent is not obvious and too general, which many seem to be.
- neya 14y agoThis is seriously good news for everyone. What this means to me as a start-up guy is that I can tomorrow start a phone company based on an Open Source OS like Android and still not worry about getting sued for trivial BS patents like these. I hope more of such patents are invalidated.
- DigitalJack 14y agoThe patent is still being "prosecuted" by the USPTO. The actions aren't final on this patent yet.
- neya 14y agoThanks, the title is kind of misleading then.
- dctoedt 14y agoSome procedural observations: 1. The rejection was signed by a primary examiner (i.e., someone who has been at the USPTO for awhile and not a rookie) and was approved by a supervisory primary examiner who oversees reexamination proceedings. 2. The rejection is not final (see the unchecked box b near the top of the first page), therefore Apple can and will try to get the examiner to withdraw the rejection. 3. The rejection states that the next "Office action" is expected to be final. I would guess that unless Apple can make a compelling case for patentability OR amend claim 19 --- the only claim at issue in the Apple v. Samsung lawsuit --- to get around the prior-art rejection, the rejection of claim 19 will be made final. 4. If the examiner does make the rejection of claim 19 final, Apple can appeal to a three-person board of senior USPTO officials, nearly all of whom will be long-time patent examiners. If the board affirms the rejection, Apple can appeal to the courts. 5. On the merits, it's helpful to think of claim 19 as an infringement checklist: For that claim to be infringed, every element recited in that claim must be present in the accused product or process [1]. (Infringement analysis treats each patent claim as a multi-part AND statement [2]; the statement must return TRUE for infringement to exist.) 6. Claim 19 was rejected as being "anticipated." This means that in the examiner's view, every single element of claim 19 can be found in a single prior-art reference --- in this case a patent publication by Lira, and, separately, a patent issued to Ording --- and therefore the claim is unpatentable under 35 USC 102 [3]. (If claim 19 is thought of as an AND statement, then in the examiner's view, the AND statement returns TRUE when applied to the Lira reference, and also when applied to the Ording patent [4], and therefore claim 19 is unpatentable.) 7. Perhaps importantly, the examiner's rejections over Lira and Ording were made under subsection (b) of 35 USC 102; that is, the "effective dates" of these two prior-art references were more than one year before the effective filing date of the Apple patent in question. This means that Apple won't be able to try to "swear behind" the references, that is, prove that its invention was invented before the effective dates of the Lira and Ording references [5]. NOTES: [1] Infringement of a claim can exist even if one or more claim elements are not literally present, as long as the accused product or process has a substantial equivalent of the missing element(s). Note: The doctrine of equivalents is tricky to assert, to prove, and to defend against. See generally http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_equivalents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_equivalents. [2] See generally http://www.oncontracts.com/how-patent-claims-work-a-variety-of-different-and-statements-all-ord-together/ http://www.oncontracts.com/how-patent-claims-work-a-variety-... [3] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/35/102 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/35/102. [4] See generally http://www.oncontracts.com/patent-validity-the-claims-and-statements-cannot-return-true-when-applied-to-prior-art/ http://www.oncontracts.com/patent-validity-the-claims-and-st... [5] See http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s715.html http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s715.html --- scroll down to part II.A.
- brianchu 14y agoThe original blog post that broke the story is here: http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/10/patent-office-tentatively-invalidates.html http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/10/patent-office-tentatively...