News - UK High Court brings common sense to Apple vs All patent war

[HEXUS]

Finds HTC did not infringe any of Apple's four patent claims, includes slide-to-unlock.

Read more.

[themw]

Thank goodness. This constant patent contest stifles creativity and harms the consumer.

[Hicks12]

there we are, all it takes is a non corrupt judge and one that actually looks at the case with common sense.
Thank god we finally have success! It was such a terrible patent, well all three were because i dont see how you can patent a slide to unlock with prior art, even patenting a multilingual keyboard... its madness! Of course it will be multilingual, you find alot of tacticle keyboards have more than one language and touch screens have had this for yonks! I love how Microsoft have pretty much all this "prior" art stuff covered as it was all implemented in their mobile OS all them years ago... stupid stupid Apple, just wait till you piss off MS and you will swiftly find that once your payments stop that you will be in the ground with no legal patents!.

[crossy]

o Unlocking a device by performing a gesture on an image.
o A system to determine which elements of a screen were activated by single-finger touches; which were activated multi-finger touches and which ignored touches altogether.
o The use of a multilingual keyboard offering different alphabets on portable device, including mobile phones.
o Letting a user drag an image beyond its limits and then showing it bounce back into place to illustrate that they had reached its furthest edge.
Firstly, the judge ruled that the fourth patent, covering bouncy images, did not apply in HTC's case. More interestingly, however, the judge found all three of Apple's remaining patents to be invalid

Good decision - victory for common sense. #1 and #3 especially are just plain daft things to grant a patent for.

the Swedish Neonode N1 handset, which featured slide-to-unlock since its release in 2004 or 3 ... alas, being a product outside of the US, the Neonode N1 holds little clout in a US patent case and, is evidence unlikely to be presented

Sorry, surely "prior art" is still valid, irrespective of whether it's a US product, or that little backwater called the "rest of the world". So if HTC etc don't use it then - as far as I'm concerned - they're fools and deserve to lose.

I presume that, by the same reasoning as the "prior art", that a decision in an English court would count for zero in the US legal system.

Is there anyway to get this decision escalated EU-wide? That way, Apple wouldn't be tempted to refile in a German court - the sooner we see an end to these kinds of daft non-patents, the better I like it.

[Brewster0101]

This case is in other countries around the world. Lets see what out comes are reached elsewhere to see which courts Apple owns....We all know they own the courts in California and on Germany.

[bridges009]

Rather depressing that Apple have chosen to spend (a fraction of) their world beating mountain of cash on paying lawyers to try and stifle their competition. This is despite the fact that it's fairly clear much of their customer base isn't even interested in buying non-Apple alternatives anyway.

[dcwt2010]

Exactly, nearly all iPhone uses I know of are locked in to the iOS world and ergo won't just leave it willy nilly.

[Jingee]

Can Apple not see that all this petty patent suing is hurting their image? Maybe not so much with the mainstream, but with their tech loyalists of old. If their old fans start to see the image of Apple hurt, surely it would only be a matter of time until it seeps through into the mainstream?

[rabbid]

Rather depressing that Apple have chosen to spend (a fraction of) their world beating mountain of cash on paying lawyers to try and stifle their competition. This is despite the fact that it's fairly clear much of their customer base isn't even interested in buying non-Apple alternatives anyway.

I assume it would have been motivated by, if winning the case, the seeking of ongoing royalties and lump sum payments to date from anyone who had infringed them? Thus recouping their expenditure and making vast additional profits, as I would assume is the motivation for a lot of these cases against non-direct competitors?

[mike306dt]

Finally a bit of sense. I've had iphone for three months, back to android I go.

[Zeven]

Good thing to see Apple put back in place. I hope this continues for the sake of common sense.

[crossy]

I assume it would have been motivated by, if winning the case, the seeking of ongoing royalties and lump sum payments to date from anyone who had infringed them? Thus recouping their expenditure and making vast additional profits, as I would assume is the motivation for a lot of these cases against non-direct competitors?

If it was that simple then I could perhaps sympathise a little - after all this is the approach that Microsoft take "you use our IP, then we expect payment" (e.g. FAT filesystem in TomTom, cameras, etc).

No, Apple's approach is that they demand reparation and removal of the "infringing" product from sale - note, no suggestion of IP licensing being offered. That's what makes them different, (and in my mind a whole less honest), than Microsoft. They don't want license fees, they just want to crush the opposition.

Added to the fact that some of their patents (like these ones) appear at best "very thin", and at worst downright mendacious, it can't help but to generate contempt amongst the technically-literate non-fans.

Some have also pointed at Apple's pitch for the "premium" space also leading to fans regarding their products as innately superior even when they're manifestly not (iPhone4 grip of death, OS X virus-proof claim) - personally I'm not so sure that this is true, although I'll be the first to admit that Apple have some nice products - would love a MacBook myself, but funds don't permit.

[kopite]

If it was that simple then I could perhaps sympathise a little - after all this is the approach that Microsoft take "you use our IP, then we expect payment" (e.g. FAT filesystem in TomTom, cameras, etc).

No, Apple's approach is that they demand reparation and removal of the "infringing" product from sale - note, no suggestion of IP licensing being offered. That's what makes them different, (and in my mind a whole less honest), than Microsoft. They don't want license fees, they just want to crush the opposition.

Added to the fact that some of their patents (like these ones) appear at best "very thin", and at worst downright mendacious, it can't help but to generate contempt amongst the technically-literate non-fans.

Some have also pointed at Apple's pitch for the "premium" space also leading to fans regarding their products as innately superior even when they're manifestly not (iPhone4 grip of death, OS X virus-proof claim) - personally I'm not so sure that this is true, although I'll be the first to admit that Apple have some nice products - would love a MacBook myself, but funds don't permit.

And yet Microsoft have always been seen as the evil company where as apple are nice and kind :S

It`s crazy how Opinion can be so skewed on things.

I saw a picture a while ago talking about Bill gates and Steve jobs.

It talked about Bill gates giving loads to charity, Setting up Orginisations to try and stop deaths in the third world and how to many ppl he is the devil incarnate Yet Steve Jobs who was well known for not giving to charity made devices that where elitist was seen as a god to many.

[Spud1]

I will ask everyone who is against Apple this question.

If you were running a large successful company (which already implies that your morals are very suspect), and you spotted a potential legal loophole that allowed you to try and stifle your competition on 100% legal grounds, thereby making your fortunes even bigger..would you do it? Or would you stick to the moral side of things and ignore it as so many people seem to think.

I would bet my life savings that the vast majority of people moaning about this would be doing exactly the same thing, its basic business tbh. Their image is not being hurt in the slightest - 99% of their customers don't care who is sueing who at the moment (remember that samsung/htc/nokia et al are just as bad, its just not cool to hate them at the moment) and those that do..well thats not enough to change the market.

In any case, the judgement here doesn't mean too much as it won't affect any of the US cases, not least because of the vast differences in Patent law. We are much stricter in the UK/EU and much more sensible than in the US where you can patent anything you want to virtually without restriction! I happen to agree that this is a ridiculous situation and that the law has some major flaws if it allows this kind of case to be brought - morally and logically Apple don't have a leg to stand on..but that really doesn't matter in the legal sense.

[aidanjt]

I will ask everyone who is against Apple this question.

If you were running a large successful company (which already implies that your morals are very suspect), and you spotted a potential legal loophole that allowed you to try and stifle your competition on 100% legal grounds, thereby making your fortunes even bigger..would you do it? Or would you stick to the moral side of things and ignore it as so many people seem to think.

Since I still have a conscience, the latter. It may not be good business, but that's more a sad indictment on society which rewards psychopathic behaviour than it being ok.

[Spud1]

It may not be good business, but that's more a sad indictment on society which rewards psychopathic behaviour than it being ok.

Very true, I don't disagree..apart from the word psychopathic as I think that's a little strong, but I agree with your general point.

I think my was point was that to get into the position where you have the power (and desire) to go through this process, means that you already don't have the morals..so if you are in that position you are likely to make the same/similar descisions. Whatever I may think of the morality of this sort of practice, it's the right thing to do in a capitalist business world.