“Last December, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a first Office action tentatively rejecting all claims of the ‘Steve Jobs patent,’ 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,'” Florian Müller reports for FOSS Patents. “First Office actions are of some, but actually rather limited, relevance.”
“As we speak, the Steve Jobs patent is even stronger than it was before someone (presumably Samsung and Google) challenged it anonymously,” Müller reports. “On September 4, 2013, the USPTO issued a reexamination certificate confirming the patentability of all 20 claims because the prior art neither anticipated this invention nor renders it obvious. This outcome is a major strategic win for Apple, a massive setback for Samsung and Google, and a potential threat to other Android device makers.”
Müller writes, “The situation on the patent front is becoming increasingly uncomfortable for Google, Samsung, and the Android ecosystem at large. More and more strategic Apple patents are confirmed by the patent office and the appeals court, and it appears inevitable that Android device makers pay Apple royalties and agree to “anti-cloning” provisions of the kind HTC accepted. For some time the Android camp thought that standard-essential patents were the answer, but it turns out that they are not. Patent enforcement takes time, especially in the U.S., but Apple has already made enormous headway, particularly in recent months. Let there be no doubt: Apple is on the winning track against Samsung and Google (at least in the U.S.).”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
Google’s going to rue the day they got greedy by deciding to try to work against Apple instead of with them. – MacDailyNews Take, March 09, 2010
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Luke” and “brizyr” for the heads up.]
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And yea, the Fandroid collective raised their fists in anger and did curse the USPTO… and it was good.
The only issue they disingenuously LOVE to bring is the “rounded corners” thing as if that dismisses everything. They know they don’t have a leg to stand on and support thieves in their immoral dishonest take. I hope they are able to cut both Larry Page and especially Eric Schmidt’s nuts off.
By “they” I mean the dufus Fandroid crowd.
Indeed android icons could have been round, rectangles, pointy cornered squares, rectangles, even triangles.
A day late and a dollar, err….a couple of hundred billion dollars short, but better late than never….
yea, verily
and I shall smite thee with thine own SEP
Not 1! Mainstream Media Outfit Is Covering This Story. Not 1.
Yessssss!
I love it when plan comes together.
It’s about damn time!
I remember Jobs saying, and I paraphrase: “And we patented the hell out of it.” I am surprised it took so long, damn lawyers. I assume Apple will be getting royalties from Samdung, Goofle, and Microsuck as well. Or as I like to say, the den of thieves. This is a great day for justice.
I think you will find that there is an Apple/Microsoft mutual cross Patent agreement that covers the touch patents.
Remember The Big Ass Table?
Correct on Mr. Softy but on Giggles and SamDung, especially SamDung, time to pay up and pay up big …..
You can bet your sweat behind A$$droid development is either slowing or reversing course to work around the various patents – cause Apple ain’t goin’ stop, baby!
So I guess we like SOME of what the government does, right?
“The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the “rules of the game” and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on.”
~Milton Friedman
I.e., it all depends on the quality of the rule-makers we send to DC and the rules they make or don’t…
I don’t know about you folks, but I’ll do my best to see my current Congress critters in the unemployment line after next November.
That rules out tea-baggers!
So I guess you just want to bankrupt the country then?
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
I totally just made that up.
Delivered with solemn gravity
It’s a dark matter, n’est pas!
@jecrawford
pardon the correction: n’est-ce pas?
Justice rides a slow horse.
If you just made it then you are in some great company, because Martin Luther King Jr made a speech with that exact phrase over 50 years ago.
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/111013-the-arc-of-the-moral-universe-is-long-but-it
Perhaps Apple should create a separate company, that no one knows they own, just to challenge the validity of Apple’s patents around the world, and fail, before anyone else does, thereby strengthening and securing them. They could call it “Devil’s Advocate Multi National” or D.A.M.N.
How terribly clever! But the court would find out and nail to the wall anyone attempting it.
Better idea: Gut the stupid US patent system and build a new one that actually knows technology and patent law AND takes full responsibility when it bungles patent approvals AND learns from its mistakes. Imagine that!
MDN Take is phropecy about to happen. Geez took them long enough to make this decision.
To me, Apple is unique in that once it saw a specific set of features it could achieve to make a usable device, they threw their entire weight of software & hardware engineering at it.
After the initial success internally, they obviously decided to go full speed on the next devices & that included patents by the dozens and it has continued after the 2007 launch.
This is the first major consumer product full court press I have seen where the emphasis was to blow out the doors even if the ‘old’ products suffered in the attempt to take the high ground and dominate a new class of products.
It is still simply amazing they pulled this off.
HTC licensed Apple’s patents – and look at the HTC One – actually a very nice device. I really don’t understand why others don’t do the same. In the end – it keeps money out of the lawyers hands – it makes for great competition – and eventually – someone will come up with a better idea. A win for all.
Optimistic? Oh yeah – but one can dream.
HTC unlike others, actually plays nicer with Apple and yes, they do have arguably the best non-Apple devices. HTC would be a great competitor to Apple if they didn’t rely on Android.
Could this be the warhead of Steve Jobs’ thermonuclear war?
To paraphrase J. Robert Oppenheimer, “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of Android.”
Man, when the tides change…
So I suspect maybe Apple made some payments recently? Can we expect a tax holiday next?
Preemptive – no disrespect, Apple earned this, but it’s strange how they were getting slammed so much and not all of a sudden Samsung is on the hot seat and Apple is getting their justified rewards.
Maybe the case about Samsung stealing a glimpse at the Nokia-Apple contract is the reason for all of this?
In the grand scheme, this will make no difference to the Android ecosystem. Android isn’t going anywhere.
That’s true: a turd that large is difficult to flush completely.
Go on web and search:
(A) “failed to innovate”
(B) “Patent Fire Sale”
Draw your conclusions class..
(Own) conclusions
Article says there’s an Android ecosystem? That’s like saying they have a garden when it is full of weeds.
Damn! Sorry I accidentally hit only one star… ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
And apparently I’m too slow to realize it let me change it… I’ll just stop now.
“Steve Jobs Patents” coming down on you!
Lovely to see the Fanbois enjoying their circle of mutual, manual satisfaction.
I wonder, the patent for a ‘touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics,’ was lodged 2008. I wonder, did Bill Gates’ touch screen table (the one he and Jobs famously chatted over in 2007), did that infringe the patent? Or was it prior art? What about E A Johnson’s work in the mid-to-late 1960s describing capacitive touchscreens – not prior art?
I don’t hold much regard for the USPTO. They did, after all, issue a patent for “the wheel”. Do you folks realise this is merely a decision of the executive, not a judicial determination? Wait until the fight gets to a country with real jurisprudence, like the UK.
Bill Gates’ touch screen table … Called ‘Surface’. AKA ‘Big Ass Table’.
No it wasn’t ‘prior art’. Read the article.
Capacitive touchscreens
No it wasn’t ‘prior art’. Read the article.
real jurisprudence, like the UK
…Where they still wear court dress, including wigs, at most court hearings. Talk about ANTIQUATED. We’re talking about tech invented in the USA. Therefore, USA courts have the ‘real jurisprudence’.
Oh and take your smirking ‘Fanbois’ insults and stuff them back up into the orifice they came from. If you have any experience around here, you know you’re wasting your time with that idiotic mythology. Go play with the real ‘fanbois’, the people using Windows despite it meagre quality compared to OS X. Go on! Get along little troller.
We knew it all along.
It’s shocking how slowly it takes our antiquated justice system to know it. Apple deserves a lot of cash for the massive ripoff that is Android.
Justice indeed
Go Apple!
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With thanks