Apple has tried to salvage their patent by editing it fourteen times after the case was brought to light, but to no avail. These claims surrounding 'unlocking' a device by performing gestures on an unlock image such as the swipe left-to-right button on iPhone screens have been deemed to be invalid. This was the ruling of a panel of multiple judges, of whom many also had engineering backgrounds). An appeal is still up for grabs by
Apple, but they've already tried to amend the claims and it hasn't seemed to cause the panelists to flinch in any way.
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| Apple's infamous 'slide-to-unlock' |
It turns out that this case might be specific to Europe, given that European patent laws requires any software patents to solve technical problems with technical means. In this case, the slide-to-unlock doesn't fulfill that requirement with its basic visual representation, and it really doesn't fall in the category of technical innovation.
Despite Apple's hold on this patent in the past in Germany and elsewhere, competitors have found workarounds that embrace a similar idea of not allowing phones to be randomly unlocked in the pockets. You might even argue that this has allowed other phone makers to be more innovative. HTC, for example, has an unlock screen that requires you to swipe simply across nine dots in a pattern that you set in advance. This is relatively easy to do, and it also doubles as a 'password' mechanism, so you won't have to unlock AND type in a password after that.
| HTC's unlock screen that doubles unlocking with password entry. |
I found this case to be interesting because it epitomized the good side of patent litigation for once. These companies like Samsung and HTC were forced to innovate bigger and better ways to configure a similar functionality without infringing on Apple's patent.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely interesting, although I'm curious to see if Android will opt for something simpler now that this patent has been invalidated.
ReplyDeleteWhile the other companies have already come up with innovative ways to unlock phones, it will be great if the courts ruling holds up after Apple appeals.
ReplyDeleteNow if only the US began taking some of these factors into consideration when issuing patents...
Sandy,
ReplyDeleteI love your comment about how patent law in Germany differs from the one in the US. In the US inventors patent the ideas without specifying ways for technical execution. That might be another flaw in the US law system, because patenting just an idea is not enough. It stops innovation because a lot of the times after patenting the idea, inventors don't try to develop the technology but rather waiting for others to do it.