Apple's Pinch+Zoom Patent Invalidated By Preliminary USPTO Ruling

skade88 writes "Apple has lost its patent on Pinch+Zoom. This is the patent that won Apple their billion dollar verdict against Samsung. GrokLaw has an article, too." The ruling is only preliminary, though, not final.

Comments

Refund?

[Anonymous Coward]

So does that mean they owe a refund to Samsung? (I am a legal newbie)

Re:Refund?

[Baloroth]

Samsung hasn't paid any money yet, the final details of the case aren't 100% settled yet. This isn't the only patent involved in the case Apple has lost since the judgment, either. Most likely, damages will be reduced. By how much is yet undetermined (my guess would be "considerably", but then I would also have guessed Apple wouldn't have won in the first place).

Re:Refund?

[SternisheFan]

Apple is appealing this. From USA Today: SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple today filed notice of appeal in its battle with Samsung, in which a judge this week denied its injunction request. The highly anticipated move comes after U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh late Monday rejected Apple's request, stating the company has not been able to show that Samsung's actions support a ban of its products. Apple is taking the matter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit along with "all other orders, rulings, findings, and conclusions underlying and related to that order," according to the court filing. Judge Koh stated Monday, "Apple's evidence does not establish that any of Apple's three design patents covers a particular feature that actually drives consumer demand." The judge's ruling came after a San Jose jury in August found Samsung violated six of Apple's patents and awarded a whopping $1 billion in damages. Jurors had sided with Apple in deciding that Samsung had violated key designs covering iPads and iPhones. Apple shares closed 0.87% lower at $521.73. http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2012/12/20/apple-samsung-iphone-ipad-patents/1783017/

Re:Refund?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that would be reasonable. If you get a patent invalidated you should be forced to repay all money you have gained from it, or even double that money or something. Maybe that would stop companies from filing piss-patents.

Re:Refund?

[backslashdot]

I would .. F it .. Too many people are willfully or negligently filing patents on stuff they didn't invent or are obvious increments to existing technology. There has to be something to discourage it.

Re:Refund?

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung has paid a ton of money directly and through damage to reputation defending themselves.

Effective anti-patent troll reform would make patent holder, if loser, pay some factor say 10 x (costs to defend + what they were asking as damages to the party they were suing + lost sales + etc.).

Of course, Apple has lost much of the tech segment as customers due to their trolling, but that is a tiny bit of their income. Getting spanked for $10-50 Billion once or twice would make them re-think their troll strategy-- if it didn't change minds of board members / C execs, the shareholders would revolt to the same effect.

Re:Refund?

[thaylin]

No they are not under "review" They have been invalidated pending appeals by Apple. Also SternisheFan, the appeal you quoted is about the injuction request, not the patent.

Re:Refund?

[AmiMoJo]

You made recommendations to non-technical friends based on your ability to run X11 apps and SSH easily?

Sick of this

[kc67]

I am sick of hearing about patent lawsuits. It is sad that the industry can't work together to create unique products and actually innovate instead of stagnating one another.

Re:Sick of this

[terec]

"The industry" was working together just fine; there weren't actually that many lawsuits between companies like Palm, Nokia, and Microsoft. Apple, however, came in as a newbie, took everybody else's ideas, put them in a nice shiny box, and started patenting and suing everybody.

Re:Sick of this

[Anonymous Coward]

I can hate both. Just because you can do a thing doesn't mean you should. And I don't care about the excuse that companies are soulless entities whose only purpose is to devour economic resources (i.e. make money) while retaining all of the rights of a human being.

Re:Sick of this

[elashish14]

No. The system has always been equally broken before, but it's a select few companies (Apple, Microsoft, Oracle) which have found it more profitable to compete in the market place. You don't see Samsung or HTC or Google trying to crush competition with lawsuits in the way that the above-named companies do.

Just because the law says it's okay to be a jerk doesn't mean it's okay when you actually do it.

Re:Sick of this

[bill_mcgonigle]

The system has always been equally broken before

Agreed.

but it's a select few companies ...

Who have finally taken full advantage of all the abuse the system provides for. We need to recognize that the system is inherently broken and needs to be abolished and/or replaced. And only replaced if there's some way to show that the replacement won't have detrimental unintended consequences.

Just because the law says it's okay to be a jerk doesn't mean it's okay when you actually do it.

And there are many ways to be a jerk, even on societal levels. Interesting chart here that completely invalidates the idea that copyright promotes the arts. Same with patents for the useful sciences.

If the Internet has taught us one thing, it's that very few ideas are actually unique. The patent system has just become a race to see who has the most and fastest lawyers who can file a patent for as many ideas as can be floated, ability or intent to implement be damned. Execution is what really matters now when it comes to advancing technology and nobody needs to make up imaginary property rights for a good management team to succeed.

But IP does maximize profits for certain corporations, created by the government, feeding money (and by extension power) back to the same government players. That's what we call a positive feedback loop. If there's a silver lining, positive feedback loops cause instability and usually lead to collapse, ending the cycle. Unfortunately, those collapses often damage everything around them when they let go.

Re:Sick of this

[erroneus]

Many Apple fans rejoiced. There was a lot of "in your face" and "got what they deserved" in response to the rulings followed by desperate attempts to justify a dishonest juror and the major crap he pulled. He "sent a message" alright. Problem is, just like other 'bad guys' he was stupid enough to brag about it. Had he said "it was a tough decision, but I felt the evidence was in Apple's favor and the other jurors agreed" things might be a little different right now.

But let's say the judge in this case was shown to have a LOT of Apple stock. Her failure to recuse herself would result in another trial even after the verdict was presented. But this was a juror. Jurors need special treatment in nearly every case simply because it's hard enough to select and agree upon the constitutionally guaranteed jury for matters such as these. If they were not almost completely immune to charges of misconduct, people would be even LESS willing to be on the jury. So you have to understand that the system will tread lightly on matters such as these. But have a look at this if you want to know more about jury misconduct:

http://www.capdefnet.org/hat/contents/constitutional_issues/jury_misconduct/jury_misconduct.htm

Interestingly, dishonesty in voir dire is at the top of the list and yet somehow, the judge in this case is willing to ignore that.

And you make a good point. After the trial, there was a spike in GS3 sales. Where I work, a LOT of iPhone users have managed to switch over to GS3 or other Androids... one of my co-workers, much to my disgust, even bought multiple Nexus 4s so he could make disgusting profits. People like him are the reason why many of us couldn't get one the first time around. "Thanks asshole" but I wasn't stupid enough to buy one from these pirates.

My point is that android is really taking over and Apple iThing fans are changing hearts. I see it everywhere. I know... I'm not a good sample observer. But it would be interesting to see what the current usage trends are. Anyone know where to look for data on the subject?

Re:Sick of this

[TheRaven64]

The system has always been equally broken before, but it's a select few companies (Apple, Microsoft, Oracle) which have found it more profitable to compete in the market place. You don't see Samsung or HTC or Google trying to crush competition with lawsuits in the way that the above-named companies do.

No, most big companies maintained patent pools to make it easy to kill off newcomers. Big tech companies don't worry much about other big tech companies that they're used to competing with. Sony Ericsson, Nokia, and Motorola, for example, didn't worry much about each other. They were all producing similar classes of products, and each generation their market share would slide up and down a bit, but it stayed relatively constant. They worry about newcomers that disrupt the market. The same thing happened in the workstation market. SGI was doing very well selling 3D workstations. Their big competitors were companies like IBM and Sun, but they knew how to differentiate themselves in the market from these guys and ensure that they had enough income to keep going. Then came nVidia, and suddenly 3D workstations were built from commodity parts: their market no longer existed.

This is why you don't see too many big patent lawsuits. The big players all have cross-licensing agreements within established markets and just use their combined might to squeeze out smaller players. If you want to join in, then they'll license you their patents, for either a share of the company or a share of the profits. If you do well, then they'll get a load of money, and if it looks like you'll do really well then they'll just buy you. The thing that gives management at these companies nightmares is the idea that they won't notice a company with a disruptive technology until it's grown so big that it can't be intimidated by these tactics.

Ahahaha

[Anonymous Coward]

And on the last day of the world. That's too funny.

prior art

[Trepidity]

This 2005 patent from Danny Hillis seems to be one of the main things the reexamination is noting as prior art.

Re:prior art

[Solandri]

Here's pinch to zoom in 1988.

Re:prior art

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Here's pinch to zoom in 1988.

You know you've been on the internet too long when you hesitate to click a link with a description like that because you think it is goatsecx.

The Single Patent? I Thought It Was Six?

[eldavojohn]

This is the patent that won Apple their billion dollar verdict against Samsung.

That's weird, I remember the jury verdict citing six patents. Pinch to zoom was one of them but surely it was only a fraction of the full billion?

Re:Groklaw is biased, read FOSS Patents instead

[h4rr4r]

Florian Mueller we know that is you. Go away.

From TFA, no reimbursement?

[hermitdev]

So here's a question. Does Samsung get any of its money back? I mean the money it spent and is spending to invalidate this stupid patent? The money it spent on trial over this stupid patent? The money it spent finding the prior art that Apple should have found before filing for this stupid patent? No. Nothing in US patent system is that fair.

I'm not a lawyer, but maybe there's one out there that could answer: couldn't Samsung counter-sue, or the Judge rule in favor of Samsung and order court fees paid? And presumably, wouldn't all expenditures, including any involved with the research and gathering of information in regards to prior art, be covered?

Yay, more sensationalist headlines.

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between "preliminarily rejected" and "actually invalidated" is analogous to the difference between "being arrested" and "being convicted". Apple has to defend the patent and lose before anything changes.

Re:Groklaw is biased, read FOSS Patents instead

[MickyTheIdiot]

I really wish I could mod this down as it is an attack from a corporate sycophant. We are talking about so-called "successful" corporations using a mechanism to keep other corporations and individuals from being successful. That's the real problem here.

And, again, I think the FOSS community needs to form a foundation to get bad patents invalidated so we can have a decent system again.

Re:The Single Patent? I Thought It Was Six?

[Baloroth]

The USPTO has said the "bounce" patent ('381) should never have been granted, and the judge involved has said the tap-to-zoom ('163) looks like it might be invalid. That together with this would mean Samsung only violated the 3 design patents (the, uh, "rounded corners and color" and "rounded edges on icons" design patents, I'll leave the validity of a patent on those up to the reader).

Re:The Single Patent? I Thought It Was Six?

[crunchy666]

The problem is that the jury didn't allocate amounts to any particular patent, so that case will probably end up back in front of another jury that is able to follow directions.

Re:The Single Patent? I Thought It Was Six?

[Theaetetus]

This is the patent that won Apple their billion dollar verdict against Samsung.

That's weird, I remember the jury verdict citing six patents. Pinch to zoom was one of them but surely it was only a fraction of the full billion?

Remember when Slashdot was just news and not someone trying to insert a questionable-at-best opinion into a story?

... no. :/

Apple case was good for public awareness

[detain]

The biggest problem with the patent system is that most people aren't aware of the problems with it. General public awareness of the problems in the patent system is a good step towards eventual patent reform. It takes a big case like this with lots of news coverage about products many of us use to motivate the general public. Change is never fast or easy but as long as the majority of people think that patent reform is needed, it should eventually happen.

Where was this art during the trial? And PJ's bias

[Theaetetus]

The claims were rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 based on U.S. Patent No. 7,724,242 to Hillis et al. (“Hillis”), International Pub. No. WO 03/081458 to Lira (“Lira”), U.S. Patent No. 6,757,673 to Makus et al. (“Makus”), Japanese Pub. No. 2000-163031A to Nomura et al. (English translation) (“Nomura”), and Dean Harris Rubine, “The Automatic Recognition of Gestures,” CMU-CS-91-202, December 1991 (“Rubine”).

As near as I can find, it doesn't look like Samsung raised any of these references during the trial to show the patents were invalid. Why not?

Additionally, Groklaw says:

The goofball jury, of course, thought it was a simply wonderful patent infringed every which way by Samsung...
Here's the verdict [PDF] form the jury signed off on after a nonchalant few hours of deliberations, which apparently did not include spending effort on whether or not this was a valid patent.
The most important part of this news isn't that the jury's work was a farce.

Wasn't Groklaw complaining just a few days ago that the jury foreman brought in external evidence, and therefore committed misconduct? And now, Groklaw is saying the jury should have conducted its own prior art search and brought in external evidence that wasn't raised by Samsung? What is it, the rules don't apply if it hurts Apple?

Re:Where was this art during the trial? And PJ's b

[Solandri]

As near as I can find, it doesn't look like Samsung raised any of these references during the trial to show the patents were invalid. Why not?

A good chunk of Samsung's prior art evidence wrt phones (the violations they were fined $1b for - they were cleared of copying the iPad) was disallowed because they missed a filing deadline. Kinda defeated the whole purpose of having the trial IMHO, but Judge Koh decided her schedule was more important.

Wasn't Groklaw complaining just a few days ago that the jury foreman brought in external evidence, and therefore committed misconduct? And now, Groklaw is saying the jury should have conducted its own prior art search and brought in external evidence that wasn't raised by Samsung? What is it, the rules don't apply if it hurts Apple?

Groklaw is referring to an erroneous instruction given by the jury foreman to the other jurors. He (wrongly) told them that software claiming to be prior art to features on the iPhone were only relevant if the code would run on the iPhone. Since all of the code submitted as prior art runs on other systems and thus doesn't run on the iPhone, he told the jury they could dismiss all the prior art claims out of hand without even having to look at it. So the jury never looked at the software prior art which was submitted at trial. Groklaw is just saying they should have.