“The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit just handed down its opinion on Apple’s appeal of the ITC’s March 2012 dismissal of its three-patent complaint against now-Google-owned Motorola Mobility,” Florian Müller reports for FOSS Patents. “The ITC decision has been reversed in part and vacated in part, and remanded to the U.S. trade agency for further proceedings with respect to two Apple multi-touch patents that have been asserted and could be reasserted anytime against Samsung: U.S. Patent No. 7,663,607 on a ‘multipoint touchscreen,’ and U.S. Patent No. 7,812,828 on an ‘ellipse fitting for multi-touch surfaces.'”
“Today’s remand decision gives Apple another opportunity to win a U.S. import ban against the Google subsidiary’s Android-based devices, which would have the Android ecosystem at large concerned,” Müller reports. “The ‘607 patent, a potentially very powerful hardware patent, was deemed invalid by the ITC. But the Federal Circuit finds the ITC’s reasoning deficient as far as claim 10 of the patent — one of the claims asserted by Apple — is concerned. The ITC will have to make a new determination, and based on the appellate decision, claim 10 may ultimately be found valid, in which case Google faces an infringement problem.”
Müller reports, “Without a doubt, Samsung, which is represented by the same law firm against Apple as Motorola Mobility (Quinn Emanuel), has been watching this appeal with great concern, and will be very unhappy about today’s decision.”
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