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Motorola Loses ITC Case Against Apple for Proximity Sensor Patents

Posted by Unknown on from the bogus-patents-for-all dept.

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."

26 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Tech can be obvious by linatux · · Score: 4, Insightful

    but round corners can't?

    1. Re:Tech can be obvious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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).

    2. Re:Tech can be obvious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      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.

    3. Re:Tech can be obvious by Anubis+IV · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

    4. Re:Tech can be obvious by Anubis+IV · · Score: 2

      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.

    5. Re:Tech can be obvious by Grieviant · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

    6. Re:Tech can be obvious by girlintraining · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    7. Re:Tech can be obvious by Anubis+IV · · Score: 2

      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.

    8. Re:Tech can be obvious by PPH · · Score: 2

      Start with a square wheel and round the corners.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    9. Re:Tech can be obvious by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

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

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  2. Re:Typo In Headline by Rideak · · Score: 2

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

  3. Strategy by Pirulo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?"

    1. Re:Strategy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

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

    2. Re:Strategy by larry+bagina · · Score: 2, Interesting

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

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    3. Re:Strategy by amiga3D · · Score: 2

      Damn. That says it all.

  4. Re:Typo In Headline by WilliamGeorge · · Score: 4, Funny

    I cannot find find it :/

    --
    William George
  5. Re:Typo In Headline by cheater512 · · Score: 3, Funny

    You'd also think that the site had editors.

  6. Re:Agatinst against ?? by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  7. Re:Typo In Headline by Demize · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  8. Re:Agatinst against ?? by oodaloop · · Score: 2

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

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  9. Re:Typo In Headline by Rideak · · Score: 2

    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.

  10. Re:Typo In Headline by obarthelemy · · Score: 2

    Try against ?

    --
    The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
  11. Error! by girlintraining · · Score: 3, Funny

    Motorola Loses ITC Case Against Against Apple for Proximity Sensor Patents

    Error: Cyclic Redundancy Check failed while parsing headline.

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
  12. Re:Good by Karlt1 · · Score: 2

    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?

  13. Re:NOT A TROLL, YOU IDIOT MODERATORS. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

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

  14. It is just rounded corners by tuppe666 · · Score: 2

    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.