“Two of Apple’s three multi-touch software patents asserted at last year’s Samsung trial in California, the ‘381 rubber-banding patent and the ‘915 pinch-to-zoom API patent, are under reexamination pressure at the United States Patent and Trademark Office,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents. “A few weeks ago the USPTO affirmed only three of 20 rubber-banding claims and issued a “final” (though not truly final) rejection of all others, including the one at issue in the Samsung case. In December the USPTO tentatively rejected the ‘915 pinch-to-zoom API patent. Samsung would like the California case stayed while these reexaminations are ongoing, but Apple yesterday filed its response and says that a stay would be ‘unwarranted and prejudicial.'”
“Apple expresses its confidence that ‘the claims will be confirmed’ when all is said and done and argues that ‘if final adverse decisions were the ultimate result, they likely would not occur until mid-2017 or later.’ That is four years out,” Mueller reports. “Apple writes that ‘[t]he ‘381 and ‘915 reexaminations are many years from completion, unless they culminate in an earlier finding that the claims are patentable’ and points to the complex and long-winded proceedings that lie ahead of Samsung’s quest for invalidation of these patents.”
Mueller reports, “During all of the time it would take until the related patent claims are actually invalidated, Apple would be entitled to damages.”
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