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Apple Wins $120 Million From Samsung In Slide-To-Unlock Patent Battle (theverge.com)
Apple has finally claimed victory over Samsung to the count of $120 million. "The Supreme Court said today that it wouldn't hear an appeal of the patent infringement case, first decided in 2014, which has been bouncing through appeals courts in the years since," reports The Verge. From the report: The case revolved around Apple's famous slide-to-unlock patent and, among others, its less-famous quick links patent, which covered software that automatically turned information like a phone number into a tappable link. Samsung was found to have infringed both patents. The ruling was overturned almost two years later, and then reinstated once again less than a year after that. From there, Samsung appealed to the Supreme Court, which is where the case met its end today. Naturally, Samsung isn't pleased with the outcome. "Our argument was supported by many who believed that the Court should hear the case to reinstate fair standards that promote innovation and prevent abuse of the patent system," a Samsung representative said in a statement. The company also said the ruling would let Apple "unjustly profit" from an invalid patent.
It's absurd because physical slides to unlock already exist - you know, like a deadbolt. X but on the Internet or X but on a touch screen are not that innovative. It's about as genius as putting skeuomorphic buttons in a UI.
Apple's slide-to-lock application was rejected many, many times until it was re-written so that the "innovation" claim was "continuously holding your finger down while sliding". Its a bad joke in a broken system.
There is a difference between inventing and designing. A patent is supposed to be a bargain between an inventor and society: society will protect the inventor with exclusive rights for many years, and in return the inventor publishes inner workings of an innovation that advances the known state-of-art (but it has to be a true innovation whose workings are not obvious). Just producing something new that can easily be replicated is design, not invention. A true invention can't be replicated unless the inventor explains the inner workings (that eliminates about 99.9% of the junk that is patented today). The obscene system today exists because the examiners are paid a bonus for everything they grant but paid nothing extra for rejecting junk, so they are incentivized all wrong.
Anything that is obvious and can be replicated by someone skilled in the art is not valid. The rules say this, but they are ignored the by morons who run the system and gain prestige/profit while hurting actual innovation.
It is a system of the lawyers, by the lawyers, for the lawyers; and it is working as designed.
The oldest product that I have heard of was the Neonode phone, first exhibited in 2002. It had vertical slide-to-unlock, albeit with three different sliders (left, centre, right) that activated three different functions.
The Neonode wasn't from Microsoft but it ran Windows CE underneath its own GUI.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Apple won on that case against Samsung in one (albeit rich and populous) country out of almost 200. Does it mean Samsung is right in the others? Why isn't Apple suing everywhere?
The real question is why is the USA patent system so broken that a case like this can be won by Apple.