Apple suffers High Court defeat over 'prize' iPhone patents

[fish1552]

Apple suffers High Court defeat over 'prize' iPhone patents

By Christopher Williams, Technology Correspondent, The Telegraph
1:39PM BST 04 Jul 2012

Apple has been defeated at the High Court by the Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC over a series of patent infringement claims, including around the iPhone’s "prize" slide-to-unlock patent.



The case brought the smartphone industry’s bitter international patent wars to British shores and is likely to have an impact on ongoing disputes in Germany and the United States.



Mr Justice Floyd dealt Apple an almost total defeat in the case, which concerned four iPhone patents.



Along with the slide-to-unlock mechanism, HTC challenged Apple’s patents on the iPhone’s groundbreaking multi-touch system. Both are “prize” patents in the American giant’s portfolio, according to intellectual property experts.



The other patents in the case related to the way the iPhone manages photographs, and the use of different character sets in text messaging; a patent dating back to 1994.



A HTC spokesman welcomed the High Court’s ruling, which said that parts of the slide-to-unlock patented were too “obvious” or foreshadowed by earlier patents. The multi-touch patent was also found to be partly invalid because it was too obvious, and Mr Justice Floyd said HTC’s smartphones did not infringe what remained.

Only the Apple’s photo management patent was found to be entirely valid, but Mr Justice Floyd said HTC had not infringed it.

Read the rest of the article here: Apple suffers High Court defeat over 'prize' iPhone patents - Telegraph

Thanks to member Slam for pointing out the story.

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[Mujibar]

Now this is just funny. I love the "too obvious" rationale. But did we really have to get such a ruling from Taiwan? I suppose so ... everything else comes from there.

Tappy-tap'd

[karmasyde]

Maybe it's time to outsource supreme court....

Swyped from my sourcerized Lte Gnex via tapatalk 2

[WERA689]

The decision comes from a British court, not a Taiwanese one. Just sayin....

[pc747df]

Another reason this sucks. So a phone can sell in one country but not another based on how that court rules about a patent. Maybe just maybe apple should consider going back to innovating and stop dictating what devices they feel should be allowed to be sold.

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