Apple lost its court case claiming a patent on the unlocking method. The judges accepted that an old 2005 Neonode phone, a Swedish ‘smartphone’ with a sort of touch interface used the swipe to unlock the phone feature identical to the iPhone which is built since 2007. Besides, the patent was deemed to be ‘obvious’ and was already described in papers in 1990.
As Neonode patented the technology in 2002, Apple lost its own, much later patent claim yesterday in the British High Court. In a sweeping move (pun intended), a few other Apple patents were declared not valid under UK patent requirements.
What are the consequences?
Q: Will Apple lose the patent everywhere now that prior art is found and the judge finds it too obvious to patent anyway?
A: Not necessarily, as US patents differ from European patents and interpretation of patent matters does as well. The abundant verdict of ‘obvious’ or ‘trivial’ is exemplary for European patent treatment. In the Netherlands (the only other country where this patent has been tried), the judge didn’t look at prior art but found it too obvious to patent.
In view of these two European judges who have looked at it, it’s very likely that the German judge which has to rule on Motorola versus Apple will follow his European colleagues. Remember that in Germany, only injunctions have been ruled on, but the swipe case has been postponed until a real trial.
Q: Will Neonode, which still exists, now sue Apple for infringement on their patent?
A: They have looked into it last February but didn’t proceed. What they did however was file clarifications of their patent to strengthen it. There are people who say the Apple patent is sufficiently different, but looking at both patents I doubt that. Chances are high that Apple will just buy Neonode to solve this. The stock price of NEON (Nasdaq name) has doubled since April, but the company is still worth ‘only’ 214.28 Million dollar. Peanuts for Apple and they are more than a patent asset as they still develop touch screen solutions.
Q: Does it matter that the Neonode phone didn’t have a capacitive screen as you can see in the video below?
A: Not at all. The technology is not described in the patent. The smart way the Swedes used an infrared grid doesn’t make a difference.
Q: Didn’t Google file a patent as well for unlocking?
A: Very good, yes in 2010, Google asked for a patent on a variation of the slide to unlock system. This time, the subtle difference is that they describe the movement of an icon onto an unlock image. NeoNode, Apple, and Google all have some slight variations in the descriptions but the basic patent is filed in 2002 by the Swedes and implemented in a real phone in 2005.
Q: Any other interesting legal stuff?
A: Certainly, the European Apple patent (EP1964022) is different from the US one and is specifically called “UNLOCKING A DEVICE BY PERFORMING GESTURES ON AN UNLOCK IMAGE.” The part in italics is clearly introduced to circumvent the existing NeoNode patent, but it hasn’t swayed the judges on the old continent.
Interestingly enough, the US patent office has added one partial sentence to the original NeoNode patent wherein the representation of the function is not relocated or duplicated during the gliding. This has been done after Apple filed its patent. It actually took the patent office 10 years to do so. How coincidental that Apple happens to move the graphic while NeoNode just checks your finger movement. However the restriction to specific icons which move or not was clearly rejected by the judges.
Q: Coincidence?
A: It’s Apple, you be the judge 🙂
The swipe-to-unlock part starts at 3m 59s in the video of the product review.
Tags: #ScienceEveryday #PatentReform #Innovation #Patents
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Thanks for the great news 😀
lovely news +Max Huijgen 😀
>Standards connectors everywhere
This can't be a ancestor of the iPhone then ^^
Good information nicely put +Max Huijgen
I can't believe there is a patent given for something so obvious. Simply painful.
Who owns the patent on comment threads?? We're all doomed…
Glad that the patent troll (Apple) is beginning to lose.
+Simon J R Holmes it never matters. Apple will add some rounded corners and claim to have invented them anyway 😉
+raghavendra gowravajjhula You're not a patent troll if you actually use the technology. Patent trolls are people or companies known as "non practicing entities" that exist for the sole purpose of amassing a patent portfolio and licensing (often via litigation) to profit from those patents.
Apple is neither. They obviously use their patented technologies, and they sue not for licensing profit but to block the use of those claimed inventions.
+Brian Cerveny I see your logic, but per Wikipedia "The term 'patent troll' was used as early as 1993 to describe companies that file aggressive patent lawsuits."
By that definition Apple is a troll. And some of the patents (I think we all know the USPTO is broken) that they've filed and then sued under are ridiculous.
Just in case you missed it Apple just patented the wedge shape https://plus.google.com/u/0/112352920206354603958/posts/M3dV6Sk7q7k +Jeffrey Hamby +Brian Cerveny
Holy shit +Max Huijgen I thought you were kidding.
And they have started legal proceedings against CERN 😉
https://plus.google.com/u/0/112418826661775774031/posts/8wRkyVCY8YF
+Max Huijgen +Jeffrey Hamby Well, i said nothing of my opinion of the patents. 😉 It so happens that I work for one of Apple's main litigation targets. I think the whole US and European patent mess is ridiculous.
It´s a mess, but it´s not the first time in history that it´s killing innovation. However due to the accelerated speed of innovation since the start of the industrial revolution it´s much more of an issue. A twenty year patent (design 14) blocks so many potential generations of devices..
I would love to see patent duration reduced significantly. 5 years? I would also favor some form of public peer review system to far more effectively find prior art than patent office staff can ever hope to find themselves.
Yes, a logical consequence from my own statement is that the duration of a patent should be adjusted. Basically five years will buy you sufficient time in the IT world. Maybe expensive gene and medical research could merit a slightly longer period.
Peer review for prior art will be difficult +Brian Cerveny Sieving through all the links you get will be a daunting task.