“For the second time in less than two months, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a first Office action tentatively declaring a key Apple multitouch patent invalid,” FLorian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents.
“In late October, a first Office action in a reexamination proceeding stated the preliminary conclusion that all 20 claims of Apple’s rubber-banding (overscroll bounce) patent [U.S. Patent No, 7,469,381] are invalid,” Mueller reports. “Back in August, a California jury held Samsung to infringe that patent, and according to interviews jurors gave later didn’t make much of an effort to ascertain its validity. This week, the USPTO issued a first Office action rejecting all 20 claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,479,949 on a ‘touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics,’ which has been referred to by many people, including Apple’s own lawyers, as ‘the Steve Jobs patent.’
Should the first Office actions tentatively invalidating the rubber-banding and the touchscreen heuristics patents be affirmed at the end of the proceedings (after all appeals have been exhausted), Apple would lose two iconic patents, but it would still have thousands of other patents, including hundreds of multitouch patents.
Read more in the full article here.
Outrageous!!
=:~)
Remind me again why jobs should be brought back here, to reward the government that does this?
What is really outrageous is that stupid patents like “a method to send text information over the internet” is allowed but has no real method just bs. For that, you can sue Apple and win.
OK we have Homeland security people (300+) that have been caught STEALING OUR STUFF WHEN WE FLY.
We have patent people approving every stupid patent and then cancelling new and innovative patents. They seem to be paid to act stupid, or criminal.
We have an entire congress that fights each other rather than work together while the country fails.
If anyone can bring down this country, it will be us.
Sadly.
The biggest problem with patents is that we don’t have an IP court where the validity of, and claims from, patents can be adjudicated in one single process.
“Outrageous” is the perfect word.
Steve needs to come down from the sky and smite them!
@ MacRaven
why do you assume steve is in any position to come down from the sky? where, when and how did he ascend?
this is not a smart-ass rhetorical question, the answer has eternal implications and not just for Steve.
It’s a JOKE.
Rubbish. Here’s our own government handing the keys to our future economic prosperity over to Korea wholesale.
The sound of the jobs being flushed down the toilet may be your own.
Agreed. All this hard work from Apple invalidated giving the green light to slavishly copy them. The US is heading down irrelevancy by its own government.
I agree with twilightmoon, it’s an incredibly stupid move. Maybe people should petition the USPTO not to invalidate the patent(s). I couldn’t find a contact email, but here’s some USPTO phone numbers, hopefully some are relevant:
Office of the Commissioner for Patents: 571-272-8800
Office of Patent Classification : 571-272-7850
USPTO Customer Support Centers : 1-800-786-9199
Get yourself a decent sub-editor, please, MDN. This is no more than a preliminary ruling, and “tentatively” should appear in your headline. Shame, you don’t need to hit- *****
Also, entirety, not entirely
This is insane. No one in the world had ever seen anything like this until it came out on iPhone. Is that not the definition of invention?
I was totally blown away when I noticed the iPhone could interpret a diagonal movement! If Jobs hadn’t invented this we would all still be making movements in right angles.
Yeah I felt the same thing when I used a touch screen on a Nintendo DS in 2004. lol
No Albert Einstein working at this sorry ass patent office
The USPTO appears to have satisfied both definitions of invalid and also obsolescence.
You have to love this kind of stuff. Pay the government, and your lawyers all sorts of money to file a patent. They accept the money, issue the patent and then just invalidate it one day because it’s convenient.
I don’t think it’s convenience, but rather the courts’ bias favoring competition over invention. Apple’s untalented copiers are constantly whining in court that there is no other way to do something than the way Apple does it. Never mind no-one ever did it that way before Apple did.
Complete and utter horseshit.
As soon as Apple can innovate incredibly difficult-to-copy products that no one can copy, the better. I am losing faith that our Justice and Patent systems more and more each day.
I smell a mole, as in Eric T. Mole!!!!!
You are so right. Eric The Mole is Obama’s technical advisor. Probably will get some sort of new cabinet position.
I always thought Eric had an extra letter in his last name.
The rubber band effect I’m a bit torn about it. On one hand its a really cool effect. On the other its a very trivial piece of blitting code (from a purely mathmatical perspective).
the heuristics claims in 949 are the bigger problem in my opinion. Massive amounts of prior art in this area and I that will end up sinking the entire patent.
Why can’t we patent this kind of “mechanics” in games?
Finally! They should of never been allowed to patent those in the first place!
Lets get this correct so all you Andriod Google Sucker’s don’t have a Hart Attack thinking you got one over on Apple by this so called announcement.
The article posted here was disingenuous due to the fact that All information was not reported, it fails to add the most important information of all ….. Ready.
” This is not final, repeating again it’s not final and can be appealed ”
If people would take the time and read the full post and not just the basic one that is posted here, eerone would find out that ths doesn’t mean a thing and is not by anyway final, Apple can and will go on Appeal to prove that it has the rights to this patent, while most of these patents that are singled out like Apples they do Remain intact and those patents issued are kept whole and not disturbed.
Now if anyone has a issue with this information go to Foss Patent’s and read the complete article without all the left out information, and really, all you Apple haters have nothing yet to celebrate as you may find that this patent might just prove to be stronger then you think.
And for all the Apple diehards, come on my friends, we are so aware that left out information brings in page views to pay the bills, problem is we are seeing to often at most of our regular News sites not full information, but it is up to the reader to research further to find out if any information is not included, remember make sure to click the “Read more in the full article Here” link.
Seeing this patent in its full breakdown and to those of you who have the time to access the Full version of the patent documentation and study the information, many if not all breakdowns of use have not been used before, implementation that can’t be seen as prior art and has a much diffrent way of being interpreted, when all is said and down I still believe this patent and those adjoined with it will pass and be upheld.
We learn to not take a believe everything you read approach, allot of us have gotten burned to many times.
Nice Night All.
btw…I only own an ipad 3 and no android products. 🙂
Dont shit yourself ifag…
Good points made.
Nothing works in the US anymore. There is no trust in institutions because they are all filled with very “smart” monkeys who have elevated stupidity to an art form.
Ha!
This country is so corrupted , plain stupid…
If there are similar enough previous claims, Apple loses out. That is the way the patent system works. Apple made a great product but has to buy or license the IP of previous patent holders. I know it can be frustrating and expensive from first hand experience. I am also aware the the USPTO routinely rejects most patent applications and forces the applicant to differentiate their claim. There are thousands of lawyers hired by the USPTO who make a living off of checking patent applications and asking for changes. Do we really want these hard working paper shufflers to have less work and cost us less?
Live by the sword die by the sword. Love Apple but this is not going to work.
Nuke Korea, they’ve earned it. That will never happen, but when will they learn that the world doesn’t play by their rules. One thing we know is that our courts and politicians are worthless when it comes to protecting it’s citizens and companies form pirates like the Koreans.
If this does pass for sure, it sucks the life out of anyone’s patent of future cool inventions. It’s like, “Why bother?”
Would love to see Steve’s reaction if he were still alive. Ballistic I’m sure.
Hopefully MS still holds the patent for the double click.
Who is John Galt?
It’s very interesting that FOSSPatents’s Florian Mueller is breaking this story and even publishing a copy of the Office Action letter.
USPTO’s Office Actions are not public documents, they’re only sent to the patent holder and the third parties who requested a re-examination.
For Florian Mueller to have access to this suggests that it was one of his clients who requested the re-examination. He has openly admitted that he works for Oracle and Microsoft.
Anyone wants to take a guess who asked for the invalidation?
I’ll give you another hint, the previous patent re-examination has requested by the law firm Bryan Cave LLP (the requester on this one is yet unknown). Now look up “Bryan Cave LLP” and “Microsoft” and “lobbying”.
…the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a first Office action tentatively declaring a key Apple multitouch patent invalid
Imagine all the money and frustration that would have been saved if these BLITHERING IDIOTS at the USPTO had given a rat’s and not approved these patents in the first place! But no, they don’t give a rat’s until such time as someone notices what a shit job they’d done. Then they care. 😛