“The Bundespatentgericht (BPatG, Federal Patent Court of Germany) yesterday struck down yet another smartphone patent: EP1168859 on a ‘portable radio communication apparatus using different alphabets,’ a multilingual keyboard patent Apple acquired from Mitsubishi a couple of years ago and asserted (unsuccessfully because the courts didn’t believe it was valid) against Samsung, Google’s Motorola Mobility, and HTC,” Florian Müller reports for FOSS Patents. “Samsung and Google were pursuing nullity (invalidation) complaints against it; the dispute between Apple and HTC was settled globally more than a year ago, resulting in the withdrawal of HTC’s nullity action.”
“Apple had brought its infringement cases over this patent in Mannheim, Germany,” Müller reports. “The cases against all three defendants were stayed. Apple stipulated to a stay of the case against HTC; the court stayed the Samsung and Motorola Mobility cases because it considered this patent highly probable to be invalidated.”
Müller reports, “A few months after the German infringement trials, the England and Wales High Court adjudicated a declaratory judgment complaint by HTC relating to a total of four patents and found this multilingual keyboard patent invalid (and, which therefore didn’t matter, infringed by HTC).”
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