Motorola Loses ITC Case Against Apple for Proximity Sensor Patents

New submitter Rideak writes with this excerpt from CNet about an ITC ruling against Motorola in their case against Apple for violating a few of their proximity sensor patents: "The U.S. International Trade Commission today ended Motorola's case against Apple, which accused the iPhone and Mac maker of patent infringement. In a ruling (PDF), the ITC said that Apple was not violating Motorola's U.S. patent covering proximity sensors, which the commission called 'obvious.' It was the last of six patents Motorola aimed at Apple as part of an October 2010 complaint."

Comments

Tech can be obvious

[linatux]

but round corners can't?

Re:Tech can be obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Well of course round corners aren't patentable. That's why Apple didn't try to patent them. You apparently need some education (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent).

Re:Tech can be obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit, rounded corners are not "distinctive". Apple never, ever should get any protection whatsoever from using them.

Re:Tech can be obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

but round corners can't?

Look, if Apple used pointy corners on their stuff then we'd hurt our hands when we held it wrong.

Re:Tech can be obvious

[crutchy]

apple should sue the person who invented the wheel

Re:Tech can be obvious

[girlintraining]

but round corners can't?

Bevelling is pretty advanced stuff for the Patent Office. Didn't really exist until, you know, about 2000 BC. Proximity sensors, on the other hand, has been around since we grew eyeballs. So I guess the takeaway here is, the Patent Office is in the stone age.

Re:Tech can be obvious

[larry bagina]

what part of "part of" do you not understand?

Re:Tech can be obvious

[Anubis IV]

Way to knee-jerk react without actually reading what he said.

He never said that rounded corners were distinctive. He said that they were a part of a distinctive design, which gets at a fundamental principle of design patents that you seem to not understand. Design patents work by specifying a number of claims for a particular design, which are taken as a whole when determining if infringement occurred. There is no design patent just for rounded corners. Don't believe me? Prove me wrong. What you'll find is that rounded corners are always just one claim among many in the design patents in which they're mentioned, and so they are never considered in a vacuum when determining whether a product infringes on the design patent.

To put it a bit differently, Coca-Cola has a design patent covering their iconic bottle shape, yet no one is suggesting that Coca-Cola has a patent on all curved bottles just because their design patent includes curves as one of its claims. To infringe, you'd have to include not just curves in your bottle design, but curves that matched the other claims and diagrams presented in their design patent before you'd be infringing on their patent.

Similarly, Apple's infamous iPhone patent that included rounded corners as one of its claims also included a number of other claims as well (I believe it also included a flat glass front, a thin aluminum bezel, a round button near the bottom, specified that the rounded corners had to be uniform in shape, and had a few more items as well). For infringement to take place, ALL of those claims would be considered together, rather than just the uniform rounded corners claim.

Re:Tech can be obvious

[Anubis IV]

Design patents operate under different principles from regular patents, and something that a lot of folks here seem to be ignoring is that the claims made in design patents are considered in whole, rather than one at a time in a vacuum. Put differently, while Apple does have a few design patents that mention rounded corners in them, they're mentioned as one claim among many in those design patents. A competing product would be measured up against all of the claims, rather than just the rounded corner one, in order to determine if infringement was occurring. So if you had a phone with uniform rounded corners that didn't match any of the other claims in the patent, you'd be perfectly fine since the rounded corners, by themselves, are not in any way distinctive.

But hey, it's fun to repeat a meme that makes you look ignorant on the subject, because Apple.

Re:Tech can be obvious

[Grieviant]

By asserting that the 'rounded corners' critique is invalidated simply by pointing to multiple claims in a design patent, you might be the one repeating an ignorant meme here. If NONE of the claimed attributes are unique on their own (rounded corners, beveling, device face comprised mostly of screen, small number of buttons, rectangular grid of icons, etc.) and various combinations of them have been widely used in other electronic devices over the past 50 years, how does one magically end up with a truly unique design? Piling up on dozens of commonplace look-and-feel features does not increase uniqueness. It seems more like an attempt to limit competition by monopolizing a basic design that the industry is already converging on.

Re:Tech can be obvious

[whoever57]

He never said that rounded corners were distinctive. He said that they were a part of a distinctive design, which gets at a fundamental principle of design patents that you seem to not understand. Design patents work by specifying a number of claims for a particular design, which are taken as a whole when determining if infringement occurred. There is no design patent just for rounded corners. Don't believe me? Prove me wrong. What you'll find is that rounded corners are always just one claim among many in the design patents in which they're mentioned, and so they are never considered in a vacuum when determining whether a product infringes on the design patent.

Challenge accepted: . Design Patent 504,889 -- which lists Steve Jobs and Apple design guru Jonathan Ive, among others, as the "inventors" -- is a claim for a rectangular electronic device with rounded corners. Thatâ(TM)s right, Apple is claiming control over rectangles. The full claim is only 2 lines long, and amazingly broad -- Apple is claiming all devices with the basic shape shown here.

Re:Tech can be obvious

[girlintraining]

He never said that rounded corners were distinctive. He said that they were a part of a distinctive design, which gets at a fundamental principle of design patents that you seem to not understand.

I think he understands perfectly: Here's the 5 page filing for the patent. The only thing that separates it in terms of appearance is that it has rounded corners. But I mean, seriously, if what you've done is glued a computer to a touchscreen panel, how many design options are there? Round corners. Square corners. It's still a fucking rectangle, because that's how every touchscreen in mass-production today is shaped. There's only a select few form-factors that make sense when the primary (indeed, only) human interface is a touch-screen display.

So no, he's not knee-jerking: It was widely panned by popular media as being a patent for rounded edges. That was the substantive issue in the German lawsuit with Samsung v. Apple, where their Galaxy looked "too similar" to the Apple device. What you're defending, sir, is not an innovation in techology, but a company with the largest market capitalization on the planet attempting to remove all the other players from the market by patenting the only practical form-factor for this type of device. There is no innovation. It's totally business. As to the reason you're defending it, I suspect religious beliefs, caused in large part by marketing and having no actual basis in reality.

To put it a bit differently, Coca-Cola has a design patent covering their iconic bottle shape, yet no one is suggesting that Coca-Cola has a patent on all curved bottles just because their design patent includes curves as one of its claims.

Umm, you're kidding, right? You've just cited the quintessential example of design patents. I mean, of all the ones you could have chosen, you've chosen the single most cited-example found in graphics design. You couldn't have derped your argument in a more epic fashion if you'd done it while screaming naked in the street.

To infringe, you'd have to include not just curves in your bottle design, but curves that matched the other claims and diagrams presented in their design patent before you'd be infringing on their patent.

See above. The curves in the bottle design was the sole thing patented.

Similarly, Apple's infamous iPhone patent that included rounded corners as one of its claims also included a number of other claims as well ...

Except it didn't, see above.

For infringement to take place, ALL of those claims would be considered together, rather than just the uniform rounded corners claim.

ALL [emphasis yours] actually equals ONE [emphasis mine] in this case. No really. It is totally just that. I'm sorry if you weren't paying attention, but I mean, who can when you're so busy fanboying that you fail at your argument so spectacularly we should build a monument to your derp.

Re:Tech can be obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Rounded corners have been around damn near forever. My desk has rounded corners so if someone accidentally walks into it, you don't slice your leg open. Likewise, I have radios and communication equipment, where there are (physical) buttons, set in a physical keypad, where both the buttons and the keypad have rounded corners. If you yelp about 'distinctive design', I will yelp about prior art! I also have GUI software from 1985 that has rounded corners (more prior art). I have also seen Motorola telephones with keypad buttons and keypads both with rounded corners (more prior art). Apple should have got nothing, and deserves nothing. Clearly the judge was either intoxicated or bribed (or both).

Re:Tech can be obvious

[Wovel]

You are arguing against the nature of design patents While that may be a valid argument, all Apple can do is follow the laws that exist today. Not the laws as you wish them to be.

Re:Tech can be obvious

[Anubis IV]

I do agree you should not have been modded down. Contrary to what some might think (you included, apparently) since I defended Apple here, I actually prefer it when people correct errors that I make in my statements, or offer some well-considered dissension.

That said, I do disagree with you. You seem to be under the incorrect belief that the design patent you've cited is the relevant one when it comes to the rounded corners meme. It isn't. That one's for the iPad mini and was issued late last year. The iPhone design patents are what started the rounded corners meme and are what was being referenced. Regardless, the reason you're not correct about that patent is because the details of those diagrams constitute claims that are legally binding. As such, for a competing product to be infringing, it would need to be infringing on the circular corners, flat face and back, the shape of the tapered edge that leads to the rear case, etc., etc., etc.. So, yes, that design patent does contain quite a bit more than just rounded corners. I do consider myself an Apple fanboy, but I do my best to be fair.

Regarding Coca-Cola. your ad hominem paragraph doesn't seem to contain any specific, factual claims that contradict anything I said. In fact, I have no idea what precisely you're disagreeing with, since you resorted to attacking me instead of citing something in particular that you disagreed with. The fact is, I chose it specifically because it's the most famous example and I wanted to make sure everyone knew what I was talking about. I'm glad you're aware that it's famous as well, but I'm disappointed that you missed my point.

The Coca-Cola bottle design patent includes a diagram of the specific curves that are claimed, so while "curves" were indeed claimed in the design patent, it wasn't just "curves": it was THOSE curves, and as such, other bottlers were fully capable of making bottles with curved sides, so long as they were distinct from Coca-Cola's bottles. That was my point, since the same is true with Apple's design patents (though I'll readily agree that some of them are rather vague/broad, including the one you've cited). Other companies would not only need to be infringing on the curves that Apple chose, but also on the other features (e.g. in the iPad mini design patent you cited, they'd also have to have the flat front and back and the curved sides that taper into the back, among other traits). Microsoft made a big deal about their 22-degree chamfered edges on the Surface line, which elegantly gets around all of Apple's design patents, even if the other traits are the same. Other companies only need to change one trait significantly in order to circumvent those design patents.

As for the claim that Apple's patent didn't contain anything else, I've already addressed that point, and if you look through some of the various iPhone design patents, you can see that the same arguments I've made already would apply to them as well. Here are some of them:
http://www.google.com/patents/USD593087
http://www.google.com/patents/USD618677
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/D672769.pdf

Long story short, you seem to have accused me of derping on one point and automatically being wrong, then dismissed everything after that as being wrong as well, even though you never said why I was wrong in the first place. I'd actually be very eager to hear why you thought I was wrong about Coke.

Re:Tech can be obvious

[Anubis IV]

You make a good point, but that's simply not how design patents work. They don't work on the principle of uniqueness, but rather on that of distinctiveness. If some combination of elements is distinctive enough, a design patent can be issued. And when you go back and look at, say, the original iPhone design patents, that design was extremely distinctive at the time it was filed, even though very few, if any, of its traits were truly unique. In contrast, the more recent iPad mini design patent that was issued is rather vague and indistinct, if I have to be honest.

Anyway, perhaps in an ideal world they might function in the way you've described, but in the meantime I don't see how it's ignorant for me to explain the way that a system functions in the real world.

Re:Tech can be obvious

[PPH]

Start with a square wheel and round the corners.

Re:Tech can be obvious

[Anubis IV]

I'll definitely agree with you in regards to the iPad mini design patent not being distinctive enough (and distinctiveness is the important measure to consider) and Apple not being entirely in the clear. That said, it's worth pointing out that design patents aren't subject to the "is it obvious" tests and the like that typical patents are subject to, which is somewhat unfortunate. I do believe, however, that the original iPhone design patents were rather distinctive in nature at the time they were filed.

As for the relevancy of the arguments I was making, I was pointing out that the rounded edges design patent idea actually started with those iPhone design patents. The iPad mini design patent you cited came years later and didn't get picked up by the press until three months after the Samsung case was "concluded", hence why I was trying to go back to the rounded edges design patents that started it all.

Anyway, thanks for replying. I definitely understand what you were getting at a lot better now, and I can agree with quite a bit of it to varying degrees.

Re:Tech can be obvious

[Eirenarch]

This recursion thing is hard!

Re:Tech can be obvious

[crutchy]

trees are obviously in violation... who will represent them in court?

Re:Tech can be obvious

[BasilBrush]

then the patent shouldn't have been granted...
the patent Apple was granted was vague...
If the patent had been more narrowly-defined...
We're talking about the so-called "rounded edges" patent/design....
At the time Coca-Cola applied for the patent, bottles just didn't look like that

Time and time again, you confuse "patents" with "design patents". Pretty much as all the people do that talk about Apple patenting rectangles. A "design patent" is not at all the same thing as a patent.

Re: Tech can be obvious

[hawkinspeter]

You, sir, are wrong.

It's an English affectation rather than belonging to our American cousins over the pond.

Re:Tech can be obvious

[jbengt]

oops, mis-moderated

Re:Tech can be obvious

[thoromyr]

a good post, but a point that seems to be missed here: the design patents are intended to allow broad coverage of appearance in a bid to create a revenue stream from the filings.

In a distinctly related topic is the established companies use of patents (supposedly FRAND, but refused to Apple) to try and prevent APple from ever releasing the iPhone. Apple figured they had the law on their side and proceded and the lawsuit proceded and... we end up with stupid, obvious patents being used on both sides. I say "stupid and obvious" because in most cases that is exactly what patents are. (Large) companies encourage employees to file patents (assigned to the company of course). Microsoft was asleep for a long time on this subject, but finally woke up.

Ridiculous patents is not an Apple, or Microsoft, or IBM or Intel or AMD or Samsung or Motorola thing -- it is all of them. Patents are used to suppress competition by raising a barrier for entry into a market. Intel and AMD cross license patents -- great, and bully for them. A significant reason *why* is because no one else can get into the game of making desktop CPUs -- you literally can't afford their patents.

When the EU decided to make money by creating "design patents" companies like Apple and Samsung are faced with a choice: file a patent on your product (and pay the fee to do so) or be sued for infringement if there is a turf war. Apple chose to file design patents in the EU, Samsung did not. In the end, Apple lost that IIRC but it might be interesting to see if Samsung now pays the EU protection money by filing design patents there.

While Apple's "rounded corners" design patent was obnoxious they are far from the only company to file for design patents in the EU, and they are certainly not the only company to use "stupid and obvious" patents when fighting against another company. In the topic at hand, Morotorola's patent was ruled as "obvious".

In sum: patents serve two purposes:

1) a revenue stream for the government issuing them

2) reduce competition by raising a barrier to entry in a market

But people are distracted by the claimed purpose "to promote invention/protect inventor's rights" and argue about merit rather than realizing they have been duped.

Re:Tech can be obvious

[Tough Love]

What part of what part of part of do you not understand?

Re:Tech can be obvious

[Tough Love]

"the design patent also includes the flat back and front, the curved surface that ties the front to the back, and the fact that the corners are all uniform in shape and circular rather than oval shaped"

When you get right down to it, the iphone design is butt ugly when you put something like a Nexus 4 or Galaxy S4 next to it.

Re:Tech can be obvious

[Tough Love]

In design parlance, it's called a "fillet", arguably the most common design element after a straight line. Because it's easy to calculate.

Typo In Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Motorola Loses ITC Case Against Against Apple for Proximity Sensor Patents

Can you find it? I can.

Re:Typo In Headline

[Rideak]

Oops my bad. Been on slashdot for more than 13 years you'd think i'd be more careful with my first submission haha.

Re:Typo In Headline

[WilliamGeorge]

I cannot find find it :/

Re:Typo In Headline

[cheater512]

You'd also think that the site had editors.

Re:Typo In Headline

[Demize]

Not if you've been here for 13 years...

Re:Typo In Headline

[Rideak]

Actually I'm pretty sure I copy/pasted the headline from the article, which means it was probably the editor who inserted the typo in the first place haha.

Re:Typo In Headline

[obarthelemy]

Try against ?

Re:Typo In Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure it was added as a public service, so we could have a nice refreshing bash of the useless editing, instead of arguing with ignorant chumps who think Apple has patented round corners.

Re:Typo In Headline

[Areyoukiddingme]

So now that Dice owns Slashdot, when are they going to outsource all the editing jobs to India?

At least then we could have some editors who speak English...

Re:Typo In Headline

[girlintraining]

Not if you've been here for 13 years...

Yeah. The editors used to be a pair of 7 line perl scripts, but now that Slashdot is under new management, they've had to cut back... now it's just one 7 line perl script.

Strategy

[Pirulo]

Without reading the whole article. I believe that with all the muscle that Google (Motorola) could put behind this claim, the case has more to do with strategy. It's a case to better loose and then later refer to. As the first poster said, -"Tech can be obvious but round corners can't?"

Re:Strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

A better strategy is to keep your patents tight, instead of loose.

Re:Strategy

[Pirulo]

Yep, I had that wtf moment after I clicked the submit button.

Re:Strategy

[larry bagina]

That's a brilliant strategy -- spend 12 billion on a has-been phone manufacturer and then lose all the patent lawsuits you file.

Re:Strategy

[amiga3D]

Damn. That says it all.

Re:Strategy

[Mr_Silver]

As the first poster said, -"Tech can be obvious but round corners can't?"

Worth noting that the practise of putting a proximity sensor in a touch screen phone to turn the screen off when you make a call was so obvious, not a single Windows Mobile phone launched by HTC, Samsung or Motorola in Europe prior to June 2007 had one.

Re:Strategy

[MachineShedFred]

Well, that's definitely a unique strategy - buy a washed up radio and phone manufacturer that most consumers won't buy a product from again, as practically everyone has been burned by a slip-shod Motorola product in the past, for a shload of money in order to gain a patent portfolio that can be used to strike back at your chief rival; and then proceed lose on every single count and have those patents invalidated as obvious after paying for 2.5 years of lawyer lawyer retainers and court costs.

They'll never see that one coming!

Good

[sking]

Maybe things are changing.

Re:Good

[amiga3D]

No. Not really. It's just that Apple is a little too big to be picking on with this stupid shit. Motorola should have used Microsoft's strategy of suing smaller companies first to build up to suing bigger ones. They jumped straight at Apple and got slapped down. You notice that Microsoft didn't jump straight at Google over Android but instead is attacking their manufacturing partners who are happy to pay protection money to get them to go away. If they had sued Google then Google would have whistled up their lawyers and slapped Microsoft down.

Re:Good

[Karlt1]

Motorola should have used Microsoft's strategy of suing smaller companies first to build up to suing bigger ones

So who was Google/Motorola going to sue? Other Android manufacturers?

Re:Good

[tinkerghost]

Just to point out - Apple sued first & these claims were part of the counter suit.

Re:Agatinst against ??

[the eric conspiracy]

Clearly that's a typo in the first senteance. It should read Clearly that's a typo in the first sentence.

Re:Agatinst against ??

[oodaloop]

I'm not the only one with a typo in the first sentence.

...obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

WAIT a minute...

This is a Large Corporation with a Patent.
OMG ! The Patent was called 'obvious' ?!?! ...it's a Large Corporation ... Patent ...the Patent was called ... 'obvious' ?

In What MAD UNIVERSE do I find myself?
Such un-natural Eldrich Horror! Cthulhu save-us-all... AHHRGH....

  strange.. my AC CAPCHA is "witches"
 

Re:...obvious

[amiga3D]

They sued another very large corporation. Apple has lots of bad ass lawyers too unlike the little people these assholes usually beat up on.

Error!

[girlintraining]

Motorola Loses ITC Case Against Against Apple for Proximity Sensor Patents

Error: Cyclic Redundancy Check failed while parsing headline.

Re:Error!

[VortexCortex]

I dunno, your check seems a bit off: It had plenty of redundancy to me, try another cycle?

Re:Error!

[pherthyl]

Huh? Makes perfect sense to me. Maybe the reading comprehension test failed.

Re:Agatinst against ??

[flaming error]

What typo, "senteance"?

senteance, n.
1) Grammatical structure composed by cognizant individual.
2) Punishment wherein the punished is confined to a dim candle-lit room inhabited by disembodied souls.

Administrative ruling

[manu0601]

While I am always happy to see obvious patent ruled as invalid, I wonder if it is the job of an administrative commission to do that job.

Re:Administrative ruling

[frinkster]

While I am always happy to see obvious patent ruled as invalid, I wonder if it is the job of an administrative commission to do that job.

It's only invalid in the sense that the ITC won't do anything about it.

But the real issue is that an administrative commission is proving to be completely gutless when it comes to two American companies fighting each other. They have gone in circles for around 3 years now trying to figure out how to not do anything at all (while the lawyers on both sides have collected many millions of dollars in fees). The sole remedy available when you file an ITC case is a ban on importation and the ITC is simply unwilling to ban importation of popular products because they don't want to create any political backlash.

If there ever was any proof that giving federal judges a lifetime appointment to protect them from politics as much as possible, this is it

Re:Who should Google buy now?

[amiga3D]

I haven't noticed lack of creating a product stopping anyone from patenting something. Lots of companies patent things and never create anything at all.

Re:Apple is better than Motorola

[amiga3D]

I bet instead of money they gave them their own exclusive iPhone 6's. That would do it.

Not a troll, seconded

[Anonymous Coward]

He lays out a clear argument as to why the Apple claim *is* essentially about rounded corners, why GGP was completely wrong about coke's design patent and it's not an ad-hominen attack as a commenter below tries to mislead you into believing.

I think Apple Fanbois want to suppress his comment, and some have mod points.

Re:Not a troll, seconded

[Hunter Shoptaw]

A bit off topic, but I find it interesting that you seem to think the commenter named "girlintrainging" is automatically a guy, when I see very little evidence of it.

Re:Not a troll, seconded

[Anubis IV]

I merely chose to use the same pronoun that the previous commenter used, so as to avoid confusion.

Re:Not a troll, seconded

[Hunter Shoptaw]

The notice wasn't directed at you so much as at the conversation, you just happened to be the bottom on the line. My apologies for the confusion.

Re:Agatinst against ??

[Wovel]

Ignoring your funny blunder, you also apparently don't understand any of the facts in the story.

Re:NOT A TROLL, YOU IDIOT MODERATORS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you wouldn't get negative moderation if you refrained from personal attacks?

Patents

[Cant use a slash wtf]

I can understand the thought behind the ruling, but I have to say I'm really against against against against against against.

The Show Must Must Must Go On!

[VortexCortex]

This is Max Headroom, live on Net-Net-Net-Network 23, because what I want to know is, who's gonna stop this kind of wholesale artic--killing-ing-ing-ing. Killing. It's time that Slashdot took a stand - a stand - a *stand* on this kind of headline murder. Murder. Murder. Preferably against it.

It is just rounded corners

[tuppe666]

By asserting that the 'rounded corners' critique is invalidated simply by pointing to multiple claims in a design patent, you might be the one repeating an ignorant meme here

Except its not even remotely true these are the design patents https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=www.google.com/patents/USD627777.pdf and https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pdfs/USD670286.pdf for your information the dotted lines are just there to add context so ignore them.

Link to an article for those who don't have firefox http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/08/apple_rectangle_rounded_corners/

Show me where it discusses the other generic things you randomly add. In fact specifically most of those "beveling, device face comprised mostly of screen, small number of buttons" are deliberately *NOT* part of the patent (they are only there for context). and icons!! on a phone unheard of on an electronics device in 2009!!!

Your post is a lie.

Re:It is just rounded corners

[Grieviant]

Yea, I actually gave Apple too much credit by implying that these attributes were rolled into a single design patent. They were all distinct but asserted simultaneously against Samsung during the trial as a combination of design and utility patents.

Let me ask though, do you think that strengthens or weakens the validity of design patents? I mean, did you even look at the ornamental tablet design patent you're linking to above? Completely devoid of any specific or unique characteristics whatsoever .... just a drawing of a thin rectangular device with a screen, no buttons even.

Your post is the ejaculation of a frothing fanboy.

Nokia not looking too pretty

[tuppe666]

Nokia phones are only lacking on the software side, hardware is still the best on market.

Unfortunately Nokia sold all its factories, and moved production to China. In an attempt to copy Apples business model. In that move the quality of hardware has took a dive. Nokia is not a well company, and unfortunately it looks terminal.

Re:Agatinst against ??

[Goaway]

Getting sued for patent infringement makes you an antagonist. Thanks, Slashdot logic!

Re:STILL NOT A TROLL, SLASHMOD RETARDS.

[BasilBrush]

It is a troll. They are incorrect statements. You don't seem to understand that design patents are valid.

Re:The Insanity of "Obviousness"

[texas neuron]

Yes you are missing something. A proximity sensor itself is not obvious but was already covered by another Motorola patent (http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/12/motorola-patent-defeats-another-in.html). The extension from the prior patent to the new patent is what is obvious. Motorola could sue based upon the prior patent if they had not let it expire.

Re:Apple is better than Motorola

[amiga3D]

Not yet, I'm at work.

Re:NOT A TROLL, YOU IDIOT MODERATORS.

[Tough Love]

In the beginning, there was nothing. Then it exploded.

"He" pushed the button.