Earlier, we wrote about the on-going war between tech giants Apple and Samsung. Apparently it isn’t over yet, with Apple now claiming that Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus infringes on Apple’s patented ‘slide-to-unlock’ utility model.
Friday, January 20th German Mannheim Regional Court rejected one of Samsung’s lawsuits against Apple. The lawsuit accused Apple of violating a patent related to 3G/UMTS wireless communications. Mere hours after that ruling, Apple claimed patent infringement for which the German court held a hearing. This time it’s the ‘slide-to-unlock’ feature, that Apple first introduced with it’s iPhone in 2007, that Apple is accusing Samsung of infringing on. This is the first time that Apple has named the Nexus smartphone in a suit.
Apple patented the aforementioned feature with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in October 2011. Previously, in 2006, a ‘utility model’ registration for the feature was obtained by the company in Germany.
A ‘utility model’ is a limited fast-track patent that companies can file for alongside traditional patents, according to Florian Mueller of FOSS Patent’s. Apple has done both for this feature in Germany.
This whole fight between the two companies got ridiculous a while back, now it’s insipid and monotonous. It has also, obviously, worsened relationships between the two companies. One notable instance is when Apple switched to Sharp, after having asked Samsung to fit LCD screens into it’s revolutionary tablet, iPad. This latest patent-related fight doesn’t even make much sense. Although Samsung’s accused device does have a slide-to-unlock feature, it is rather distinctive and different from what’s seen on Apple’s devices. The Android software even offers alternatives such as the direction of slide etc.
Apple has an almost arrogant and dictatorial attitude towards the matter, and this attitude can be traced back to when Steve Jobs was the CEO. He is famously known to have particular disdain for Samsung and Google devices and has famously said that he intended to go ‘thermonuclear’ if that was what it would take to ‘destroy’ Android- a supposed rip-off.
At present, this latest lawsuit can either be put on hold, or ‘stay’ or Judge Andreas Voss could do what Apple wants and give a decision soon. The Judge may opt to stay to avoid inconsistent rulings, pending the conclusion of an identical suit at the Munich-based Federal Patent court. If that happens the slide-to-unlock model will be dangerously close to it’s ten year expiration date, which will devalue it commercially. Meanwhile, Samsung is pointing at a Dutch Judge’s ruling in August of last year, that cast Apple’s slide to unlock patent as ‘likely invalid’ due to it’s being non-inventive. The non-inventiveness is due to a practically unknown and unheard of device- the Neonode N1m, a Swedish company’s product, manufactured before Apple filed for the slide-to-unlock patent on December 23, 2005 which already had the feature that Apple claims is invented by them.
A ruling, a stay, or a decision to appoint an independent expert to assess the situation and Apple’s claims of patent infringement is expected by the Mannheim court on March 16, 2012
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