Apple just has been on the losing end of things lately. It was recently handed a ruling in Germany that said its slide-to-unlock patent is invalidated. Now if I'm not mistaken, this is what originally caused problems with Samsung and forced them to figure out another system to unlock the their devices. My Android right now offers a variety of options to unlock, some of which are pretty neat such as face recognition, movement or sliding a code onto the screen. Not just slide to unlock or putting in a few numbers. The fact that Samsung didn't have the patent to do this kind of patent forced it to innovate, which is an interesting idea because patents are normally the source of the innovation.
The patent in question was EP1964022, which says "unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image." Even though Apple had come up with fourteen different arguments as to why it shouldn't be invalidated, the Bundespatentgericht, Germany's Federal Patent Court still said it was. The judges said that it failed to meet the technicity requirements under European Patent Law because it doesn't solve a technical problem through a technical solution and the slide is not a technical innovation. Clearly the slide isn't a technological innovation, but it was able to get patented in here in the United States because we can patent "everything under the sun made by man," as we learned in the beginning of class. The question I have is whether it is advantageous or not to have such technical requirements to get patents? I can't quite think of an example right now... but I can see how this could be a problem. As stated before, the patent in the US forced Apple's competitors to figure out other slide to unlock features and it wouldn't have if there was no patent. Are these strict patent laws in Europe good or bad?
This is an interesting case where fear of patent infringement has forced companies to innovate bigger and better technologies, through loopholes. Samsung was clever enough to find a workaround to a patent that seems to entitled to Apple.
ReplyDeleteYou raise some interesting questions. I like how you discussed how this slide to unlock patent Apple has forced other companies to figure out new ideas. While I have been reading a lot of articles about how patents impede innovations, it was nice to read about an alternate view.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely interesting. I'm curious to see how other brands will respond to this new development (specifically if they start adding slide to unlock).
ReplyDeleteGreat read Adam. Apple has been on the losing sides these past couple months. I do wonder how this situation will turn out and affect similar companies. We should take a close look at how this will affect other lawsuits as well.
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