US Patent Office Invalidates Apple's "Rubber Banding" Patent

bhagwad writes "The patent that was the cause of so much grief to Samsung in the recently concluded trial with Apple has been tentatively invalidated by the USPTO. The challenge was filed anonymously, but it obviously could have been filed by any smartphone manufacturer. Will this have an effect on further proceedings in the case or perhaps more importantly on the inevitable appeal?"

Comments

Finally

[RenderSeven]

Signs of life from the USPTO

Re:Finally

[jkrise]

This is what the rascal Florian Mueller has to say: Apple's rubber-banding (overscroll-bounce) patent is still going to go through a lengthy proces before it may or may not be invalidated. There can be more than one non-final Office action by the Central Reexamination Division. Even a "final Office action" is not final at all. It can be reconsidered by the Central Reexamination Division itself, and the last decision by that division can be appealed to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which used to be called the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) until recently and is like an USPTO-internal appeals court. Remands by the PTAB to the Central Reexamination Division cause further delay. When the USPTO is done with the patent, its decision can be appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. And theoretically, a Federal Circuit decision can be appealed to the Supreme Court, which doesn't hear many patent validity cases (but does take a look at important issues from time to time).

Apple has many patents in play against Android. It doesn't matter in a strategic sense if some of them, or even many of them, get invalidated. It just needs to enforce enough of them to ensure product differentiation. The '381 patent covers a signature element of the iOS touchscreen user interface, and Apple is going to fight hard to keep it alive. But at the end of the day it's just one of many patents-in-suit.

Someone needs to whip this scoundrel a 1000 lashes on his bare buttocks until he understands what shit he is spouting as a so-called 'expert' on patents.

Re:Finally

[Zordak]

Signs of life from the USPTO

This rejection means nothing. Something like 90% of first office actions are rejections. That's just how the USPTO does business, and it's how they've done business for a long time. Even a "final" rejection isn't final. It just means you have to pay more money to keep arguing with the examiner. And you can keep doing that for as long as you're willing to continue paying the fee to go "one more round."

This is a very run-of-the-mill rejection. The court will probably just ignore it. Until the patent is for-real-finally rejected by the patent office (meaning it's been more than six months since the examiner issued an office action and Apple hasn't responded), the patent is strongly presumed to be valid.

This ends the educational portion of today's episode of Slashdot. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled trolling, flame-baiting, karma-whoring, and Microsoft-bashing.

Same ol' stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't this crap happening DURING the trial?

Re:oh dear, uspto.....

[Stirling Newberry]

Because the USPO is paid for by fees.

Re:What is it about?

[Vicarius]

What does the patented "Rubber Banding" do...

Rubber banding happens, when you try to scroll past the content, your screen will scroll a little beyond the content and then bounce back. This gives the user a visual feedback that device is responding to the input (trying to scroll) and that device is not frozen; thus, making the experience less frustrating.

Uncited Theft from Academia

[Anonymous Coward]

Look in HCI this stuff has been done since forever. Academics got really interested in touch technologies in the early 2000s. They've been used spring decay to make "nicer" and more natural interfaces ever since.

Many patents out there are IP theft. They are stealing from public institutions and patenting technology that has been developed in academia.

Re:Hate it

[SuperMooCow]

I think what he's saying is that if there was a rubber band effect, it would confirm that the device accepted his scrolling command but also show him that it's not supposed to scroll.

Re:What is it about?

[ToastedRhino]

You're describing pull to refresh, not rubber banding. It's a different, but I would agree somewhat related, idea than the rubber band effect, and Twitter actually owns the pull to refresh patent, not Apple.

Rubber banding is when you get to the end of a scroll view, the view continues to scroll a bit past where it's supposed to while showing a generic background (it's now the grey linen on iOS, can't remember what it used to be), then bounces back to the top of the screen. This provides a visual indicator that you've reached the end of the scrollable area.

I won't argue that this should be a patentable idea, but if it were only "eye candy" and not functional in some way every other smart phone maker wouldn't be trying to/have already implemented (and removed for fear of litigation in the case of Android) it.

It at first you are rejected...try again.

[DeadCatX2]

Chances are that it was rejected the first time. And the second time. And the third time...

You see, when Apple doesn't get a patent approved, they just change a few words and keep trying. Take for example the '604 patent. It was rejected twice in 2007, three times in 2008, once in 2009, twice in 2010 and once in 2011. (source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/technology/patent-wars-among-tech-giants-can-stifle-competition.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all )

Finally it got approved (tenth time is the charm!).