You can't file for patent infringement unless you've been issued a patent can you? In the this particular case that happened in the past couple of months, not years ago.
Right. You can not file for patent infringement until a patent has been issued so there's nothing NeoNode could have done to stop Apple from using the technology until recently.
They could, however, have moved to have Apple's patent invalidated on the basis of prior art, but that would have been expensive and risky before their patent was issued. And the fact that they aren't even using the technology would have made it more difficult to do so.
Now that they have a patent, they can sue Apple for infringement if they think Apple infringes.
Wow! It seems that for some people here, Apple can do no wrong. It is, after all, an all-things-Apple site, but the older I get, the more shades of gray I see. Things just aren't black or white anymore, but that's just me, I guess. For what is worth, the gestures for both companies seem similar in purpose and Apple MAY have to license the technology; it MAY be quite the opposite as well, but I'll leave that to the lawyers to figure out.
All we know is Neonode patented a very vague patent for a gesture on a touchscreen and that Neonode released a device that had some rudimentary capability to register a gesture. It's certainly not like the iPhone in any sense. I think it even uses IR above the display to register the gestures.
Wow! It seems that for some people here, Apple can do no wrong. It is, after all, an all-things-Apple site, but the older I get, the more shades of gray I see. Things just aren't black or white anymore, but that's just me, I guess. For what is worth, the gestures for both companies seem similar in purpose and Apple MAY have to license the technology; it MAY be quite the opposite as well, but I'll leave that to the lawyers to figure out.
What you see to be missing is that "seem similar in purpose" is not an argument that carries any weight in a patent matter. The only thing that matters is the specific patent claims and whether Apple's product SPECIFICALLY does exactly what the patent claims.
The above discussion suggests that this might not be the case here - since Neonode's patent specifically states that the icon does not move.
Yes, quite sure. Where has any final judgement found Apple's slide-to-unlock patent valid and infringed?
Mannheim Germany is the one I remember offhand, and it was a slam dunk final win. With the caveat that a ruling in court A still gets subject to the full appeals process. An injunction is final after the fact, that wasn't a preliminary injunction.
The other one I think was actually just slide-to-unlock surviving attempts by Samsung to have it tossed, so it wouldn't be final yet, but looking positive. Apparently an expected ruling is in two weeks (16 March), in the same court. Precedent anyone???
Mannheim Germany is the one I remember offhand, and it was a slam dunk final win. With the caveat that a ruling in court A still gets subject to the full appeals process. An injunction is final after the fact, that wasn't a preliminary injunction.
The other one I think was actually just slide-to-unlock surviving attempts by Samsung to have it tossed, so it wouldn't be final yet, but looking positive. Apparently an expected ruling is in two weeks (16 March), in the same court. Precedent anyone???
The patent's validity hasn't yet been challenged in the German court (AFAIK), and was not really a consideration in the Mannheim ruling. For the sake of an injunction the German court cared more that a patent had been issued. Whether the patent was actually valid to begin with was not their concern at the moment. There's a reason these guys go to the German courts to file for injunctions. Do you see Apple filing the same patent infringement claim in any other EU country? France or GB? Perhaps even Italy? IMHO Apple is concerned that the patent could be ruled invalid and isn't willing to take that chance, at least yet.
If I understood correctly Apple could have blocked the import of Samsung Tab's throughout Europe if they had been able convince the Dutch court that their slide-to-lock patent was probably good. That court used different standards and considered the argument differently than in Germany, and in a setback for Apple said the patent was obvious, trivial and had prior art. For those reasons the Dutch judge said in official court docs that the patent was probably invalid.
EDIT: FOSSPatents is reporting this morning that Apple's Slide-to unlock patent infringement claim against Samsung has been tossed out. That still leaves a German utility model claim to be decided.
The more I read about German legal filings the more I see how different that country is from the rest of Europe. Now a utility model? It's quite differnt from EU patent filings. The first thing I see is that if the prior art (Neonode for instance) didn't originate in Germany, then it won't be considered under a German Utility Model. Curiouser and curiouser. . .
So in the interest of fairness, all the anti-Apple folk will post that since "you can't patent a gesture" this patent is invalid. Right?
Correct, minus the part about people being necessarily "anti-Apple folk." As difficult as it sounds, many of us who oppose Apple's lawsuits do so for reasons having to do with the patents being too broad and far-reaching.
We're not hypocrites who believe every Apple patent should be deemed valid and every nonapple patent should be invalidated. We actually use logic and comprehension of the issue to reach our conclusions. Not pointless emotional ties to a brand of all things.
The patent's validity hasn't yet been challenged in the German court (AFAIK), and was not really a consideration in the Mannheim ruling. For the sake of an injunction the German court cared more that a patent had been issued. Whether the patent was actually valid to begin with was not their concern at the moment. There's a reason these guys go to the German courts to file for injunctions. Do you see Apple filing the same patent infringement claim in any other EU country? France or GB? Perhaps even Italy? IMHO Apple is concerned that the patent could be ruled invalid and isn't willing to take that chance, at least yet.
If I understood correctly Apple could have blocked the import of Samsung Tab's throughout Europe if they had been able convince the Dutch court that their slide-to-lock patent was probably good. That court used different standards and considered the argument differently than in Germany, and in a setback for Apple said the patent was obvious, trivial and had prior art. For those reasons the Dutch judge said in official court docs that the patent was probably invalid.
EDIT: FOSSPatents is reporting this morning that Apple's Slide-to unlock patent infringement claim against Samsung has been tossed out. That still leaves a German utility model claim to be decided.
The more I read about German legal filings the more I see how different that country is from the rest of Europe. Now a utility model? It's quite differnt from EU patent filings. The first thing I see is that if the prior art (Neonode for instance) didn't originate in Germany, then it won't be considered under a German Utility Model. Curiouser and curiouser. . .
Just saw the Apple v. Samsung ruling news myself (Florian does say this isn't the case I mentioned above though - that ruling is still scheduled for NLT the 16th). I don't know what to think about the German system now. I unlike you do think the Moto injunction was directly related to Slide-to-unlocks validity, especially since trying to invalidate it would have been one of Moto's tactics in trying to win the case. And winning a patent case that grans a permanent injunction normally requires validity and infringement. (Mueller mentioned Apple would have had to prove validity, and that differences in the cases are largely due to how the terms were "constructed" [defined] in that part of the case)
Now the same court (but different judge?) really add to the confusion (by non-German patent lawyers) and the appeals process just got guaranteed to take center stage.
I don't know what to think about the German system now.
Judge's have different opinions on what is valid and what is infringing. Give them that. But Germany does seem like the Eastern District of Texas type of thing. It's dominated by some crazy judges and enables these types of behaviors.
Comments
You can't file for patent infringement unless you've been issued a patent can you? In the this particular case that happened in the past couple of months, not years ago.
Right. You can not file for patent infringement until a patent has been issued so there's nothing NeoNode could have done to stop Apple from using the technology until recently.
They could, however, have moved to have Apple's patent invalidated on the basis of prior art, but that would have been expensive and risky before their patent was issued. And the fact that they aren't even using the technology would have made it more difficult to do so.
Now that they have a patent, they can sue Apple for infringement if they think Apple infringes.
Here's a video posted on June 29, 2007 showing the Neonode N1M device:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj-KS2kfIr0
Looks like there may be a possibility that Neonode beat Apple to the punch. If so, I'm sure they'll work out a mutually acceptable solution.
Honestly, has anyone ever bought or even seen one of these n1m's before all of these patent arguments?
Honestly, has anyone ever bought or even seen one of these n1m's before all of these patent arguments?
Apparently Apple did. They mentioned them in their US patent application (or was it the EU one) as an example of prior art.
All we know is Neonode patented a very vague patent for a gesture on a touchscreen and that Neonode released a device that had some rudimentary capability to register a gesture. It's certainly not like the iPhone in any sense. I think it even uses IR above the display to register the gestures.
Here is Apple's very specific and detailed slide to unlock innovation: http://www.google.com/patents/US2009...page&q&f=false
If Apple could successfully sue MS for blatantly using their GUI concepts I have a feeling Neonode's patent won't hold up to well.
Don't you mean Xerox's GUI concept?
Don't you mean Xerox's GUI concept?
You know damn well I don't mean the tech that Apple licensed from Xerox PARC.
Wow! It seems that for some people here, Apple can do no wrong. It is, after all, an all-things-Apple site, but the older I get, the more shades of gray I see. Things just aren't black or white anymore, but that's just me, I guess. For what is worth, the gestures for both companies seem similar in purpose and Apple MAY have to license the technology; it MAY be quite the opposite as well, but I'll leave that to the lawyers to figure out.
What you see to be missing is that "seem similar in purpose" is not an argument that carries any weight in a patent matter. The only thing that matters is the specific patent claims and whether Apple's product SPECIFICALLY does exactly what the patent claims.
The above discussion suggests that this might not be the case here - since Neonode's patent specifically states that the icon does not move.
Yes, quite sure. Where has any final judgement found Apple's slide-to-unlock patent valid and infringed?
Mannheim Germany is the one I remember offhand, and it was a slam dunk final win. With the caveat that a ruling in court A still gets subject to the full appeals process. An injunction is final after the fact, that wasn't a preliminary injunction.
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2012...n-against.html
The other one I think was actually just slide-to-unlock surviving attempts by Samsung to have it tossed, so it wouldn't be final yet, but looking positive. Apparently an expected ruling is in two weeks (16 March), in the same court. Precedent anyone???
Mannheim Germany is the one I remember offhand, and it was a slam dunk final win. With the caveat that a ruling in court A still gets subject to the full appeals process. An injunction is final after the fact, that wasn't a preliminary injunction.
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2012...n-against.html
The other one I think was actually just slide-to-unlock surviving attempts by Samsung to have it tossed, so it wouldn't be final yet, but looking positive. Apparently an expected ruling is in two weeks (16 March), in the same court. Precedent anyone???
The patent's validity hasn't yet been challenged in the German court (AFAIK), and was not really a consideration in the Mannheim ruling. For the sake of an injunction the German court cared more that a patent had been issued. Whether the patent was actually valid to begin with was not their concern at the moment. There's a reason these guys go to the German courts to file for injunctions. Do you see Apple filing the same patent infringement claim in any other EU country? France or GB? Perhaps even Italy? IMHO Apple is concerned that the patent could be ruled invalid and isn't willing to take that chance, at least yet.
If I understood correctly Apple could have blocked the import of Samsung Tab's throughout Europe if they had been able convince the Dutch court that their slide-to-lock patent was probably good. That court used different standards and considered the argument differently than in Germany, and in a setback for Apple said the patent was obvious, trivial and had prior art. For those reasons the Dutch judge said in official court docs that the patent was probably invalid.
EDIT: FOSSPatents is reporting this morning that Apple's Slide-to unlock patent infringement claim against Samsung has been tossed out. That still leaves a German utility model claim to be decided.
The more I read about German legal filings the more I see how different that country is from the rest of Europe. Now a utility model? It's quite differnt from EU patent filings. The first thing I see is that if the prior art (Neonode for instance) didn't originate in Germany, then it won't be considered under a German Utility Model. Curiouser and curiouser. . .
http://www.abitz.de/En/GermanUtilityModels
So in the interest of fairness, all the anti-Apple folk will post that since "you can't patent a gesture" this patent is invalid. Right?
Correct, minus the part about people being necessarily "anti-Apple folk." As difficult as it sounds, many of us who oppose Apple's lawsuits do so for reasons having to do with the patents being too broad and far-reaching.
We're not hypocrites who believe every Apple patent should be deemed valid and every nonapple patent should be invalidated. We actually use logic and comprehension of the issue to reach our conclusions. Not pointless emotional ties to a brand of all things.
The patent's validity hasn't yet been challenged in the German court (AFAIK), and was not really a consideration in the Mannheim ruling. For the sake of an injunction the German court cared more that a patent had been issued. Whether the patent was actually valid to begin with was not their concern at the moment. There's a reason these guys go to the German courts to file for injunctions. Do you see Apple filing the same patent infringement claim in any other EU country? France or GB? Perhaps even Italy? IMHO Apple is concerned that the patent could be ruled invalid and isn't willing to take that chance, at least yet.
If I understood correctly Apple could have blocked the import of Samsung Tab's throughout Europe if they had been able convince the Dutch court that their slide-to-lock patent was probably good. That court used different standards and considered the argument differently than in Germany, and in a setback for Apple said the patent was obvious, trivial and had prior art. For those reasons the Dutch judge said in official court docs that the patent was probably invalid.
EDIT: FOSSPatents is reporting this morning that Apple's Slide-to unlock patent infringement claim against Samsung has been tossed out. That still leaves a German utility model claim to be decided.
The more I read about German legal filings the more I see how different that country is from the rest of Europe. Now a utility model? It's quite differnt from EU patent filings. The first thing I see is that if the prior art (Neonode for instance) didn't originate in Germany, then it won't be considered under a German Utility Model. Curiouser and curiouser. . .
http://www.abitz.de/En/GermanUtilityModels
Just saw the Apple v. Samsung ruling news myself (Florian does say this isn't the case I mentioned above though - that ruling is still scheduled for NLT the 16th). I don't know what to think about the German system now. I unlike you do think the Moto injunction was directly related to Slide-to-unlocks validity, especially since trying to invalidate it would have been one of Moto's tactics in trying to win the case. And winning a patent case that grans a permanent injunction normally requires validity and infringement. (Mueller mentioned Apple would have had to prove validity, and that differences in the cases are largely due to how the terms were "constructed" [defined] in that part of the case)
Now the same court (but different judge?) really add to the confusion (by non-German patent lawyers) and the appeals process just got guaranteed to take center stage.
I don't know what to think about the German system now.
Judge's have different opinions on what is valid and what is infringing. Give them that. But Germany does seem like the Eastern District of Texas type of thing. It's dominated by some crazy judges and enables these types of behaviors.