You don't get the point. Patent office is under funded. Patents come in at a rapid pace
Oh, I get the point; you're claiming the entire system is a fraud, invalidating every single patent since [insert arbitrary date here], forcing every single lawsuit since [date] to be invalidated on the grounds that every single patent since [date] is false.
That doesn't work.
Its gotten to a point where the Patent offices job of determining validity of a patent has been pushed unto the courts.
And guess what. There was a lawsuit that involved this patent. It… *drumroll* …was upheld. End of story.
Oh, I get the point; you're claiming the entire system is a fraud, invalidating every single patent since [insert arbitrary date here], forcing every single lawsuit since [date] to be invalidated on the grounds that every single patent since [date] is false.
That doesn't work.
And guess what. There was a lawsuit that involved this patent. It… *drumroll* …was upheld. End of story.
Yeah but not reexamined.
This is usually what happens.
Company A sues company B over a patent.
Company B or company B's friend/s goes to the Patent office and says what the hell reexamine these patents!
Now what happens is either both parties agree to the reexamination in order to take validity out of the hands of the jury, or company A decides to let the jury handle it or both decide to let the jury handle it taken it out the patent office.
So in the Apple vs Samsung case, the rubber banding patent was upheld by the Jury.
But that doesn't matter, because in May, one of samsung's friends (we all know its google) challenged Apple patents.
Patent office reexamination trumps jury.
So if the rubber banding invalidity gets held up by the patent office doesn't matter what the jury says.
Oh, I get the point; you're claiming the entire system is a fraud, invalidating every single patent since [insert arbitrary date here], forcing every single lawsuit since [date] to be invalidated on the grounds that every single patent since [date] is false.
That doesn't work.
And guess what. There was a lawsuit that involved this patent. It… *drumroll* …was upheld. End of story.
You take this stuff too personally. First you already noted the word preliminary, suggesting it's still up for appeal. The patent system itself isn't perfect, which is why it has ways to challenge these things. I wouldn't care if all of these patents asserted on both sides received closer scrutiny. It might lighten the amount of long term litigation. The trials are dumb anyway. These things should be handled by expert review and binding arbitration rather than a group of people who can't possibly absorb all of the information delivered in that time.
Incompetents in the Patent Office...Plain and simple....
I certainly question the competency of the USPTO, but it also doesn't help that Apple massively abuses the system. For example, their 'Siri' patent application was submitted to the USPTO a mind-blowing 10 times before finally being accepted! When you are able to spam the USPTO like this with patent applications, of course a few are going to 'sneak through the cracks'.
The patent system itself isn't perfect, which is why it has ways to challenge these things.
That's called a lawsuit. It's already done. The time and place for the patent to be invalidated was the lawsuit involving it. That didn't happen. It's not invalid.
There's absolutely nothing unusual about a patents claims being trimmed or the patent tossed out altogether on reexamination by the USPTO. Nearly 15% of patents are invalidated altogether and another 63% of them trimmed back after an ex-parte reexam (like this was). Inter-partes reexams are even more successful with fully 90% of the questioned patents tossed or their claims amended.
So whats the difference between the two? In an ex parte reexam the entity or person requesting it can remain anonymous. The downside is that they cannot participate in the process. Once they submit the reexamination request accompanied by the appropriate evidence of invalidity they're done. Everything from that point is between the patent office and the patent holder with no input permitted by the challenger. If the outcome isn't to their liking then tough.
An inter-parte reexam requires the challenger to to be identified. The big advantage tho is that they remain in the discussion and negotiations between patentee and patent office. They can argue their points, disagree with the patent holder and/or patent office, submit more supporting paperwork if needed and appeal the decision if it's unfavorable to them. For these reasons inter-parte exams are more common, and of course more successful. This particular case was not one of those, perhaps showing the strength of the submitted proof of invalidity.
There's nothing devious about having a patent challenged, nor even having it invalidated. It happens. . . often!
That's called a lawsuit. It's already done. The time and place for the patent to be invalidated was the lawsuit involving it. That didn't happen. It's not invalid.
Ri~ght…
I don't think there's a final ruling yet TS. That's part of what the hearing yesterday was about. That piece of Apple's win could still be tossed or modified by the court I believe. Not entirely positive but I'll do some more research.
In any event this wasn't at all unexpected. Judge Koh herself felt that particular patent would be invalidated.
EDIT: The discussion of how to handle likely patent invalidity yesterday in Judge Koh's courtroom involved Apple's asserted '381 "rubber-band" patent which was also found invalid by the USPTO back in late October. It was not the '949 touch patent discussed here and asserted against Samsung in a lawsuit begun last year in a separate tho related case.
According to a poster on MacRumors the Samsung trial did not involve this patent. If that's the case I can't see it changing the outcome of the trial. Of course it's a bad time for this to become public,
I'd be curious to know how man Samsung patents have been invalidated that we never hear about since all people seem to care about are Apple patents. When I searched USPTO's database I saw a number of "rounded rectangle" design patents awarded to Samsung. Why would you patent something if you weren't prepared to defend it?
According to a poster on MacRumors the Samsung trial did not involve this patent. If that's the case I can't see it changing the outcome of the trial. Of course it's a bad time for this to become public,
The '949 patent discussed here was included in Apple's infringement claims against Samsung AFAIK.
EDIT: I confirmed that Apple went after Samsung with this patent, but not in the Billion Dollar case. It was a different suit heard by the same Judge Koh where Apple demanded an injunction on Sammy's Galaxy devices including the Nexus for infringing on the '949 touch patent.
Nothing to see here until there's a final ruling. Has anyone looked at the patent? It's not some simple "if you touch the screen then this happens". It is a very detailed patent with a significant number of other patent references and detailed descriptions. As with many other re-examinations, the USPTO simply took the easy way out - they passed the ball back to Apple's court. Now Apple has to spend the time & money to convince the USPTO their patent is valid. The USPTO just didn't want to make a ruling with such far-reaching implications based on their very limited resources to examine patents.
I see GG has brought up the same stats as the last thread on the previous patent Apple had preliminarily invalidated. This time you never provided the links to your sources. There's one big flaw with your numbers and the studies you took them from (unless you found a new source) - those numbers aren't broken down by industry or company.
The chances of Jim-Bob getting his "engine that runs on water" patent invalidated are very good. Likewise, smaller companies who can't afford to do the research or pay lawyers to check things over would also have a higher chance of getting their patents invalidated. Companies like Apple spend a lot of money on R&D and have legal departments specifically assigned just to deal with patent issues. You can bet Apple has covered all their bases with their patent applications and the percentage of patents they get invalidated wouldn't be anywhere near the numbers GG provided.
That's called a lawsuit. It's already done. The time and place for the patent to be invalidated was the lawsuit involving it. That didn't happen. It's not invalid.
Ri~ght…
Lawsuits don't necessarily determine validity. When they come up, these things tend to be examined. I mentioned the jury issue as it's not possible for a random group of jurors to be knowledgeable on these matters. I mentioned the same thing about the Motorola case. It should be determined by binding arbitration rather than a panel of jurors with little background knowledge on the subject. It's just a very poor system for dealing with such things.
Also at least the US Apple vs Samsung lawsuit didn't involve this patent.
I see GG has brought up the same stats as the last thread on the previous patent Apple had preliminarily invalidated. This time you never provided the links to your sources. There's one big flaw with your numbers and the studies you took them from (unless you found a new source) - those numbers aren't broken down by industry or company.
The chances of Jim-Bob getting his "engine that runs on water" patent invalidated are very good. Likewise, smaller companies who can't afford to do the research or pay lawyers to check things over would also have a higher chance of getting their patents invalidated. Companies like Apple spend a lot of money on R&D and have legal departments specifically assigned just to deal with patent issues. You can bet Apple has covered all their bases with their patent applications and the percentage of patents they get invalidated wouldn't be anywhere near the numbers GG provided.
Your always welcome to bring your own citations into the discussion, particularly if they disagree with what I've written. Promise I won''t toss a troll tag at you for challenging me.
You're also appear to be confused with the stats. They don't show that 90% of all issued patents have validity issues. The numbers are for challenged and re-examined patents for which evidence of invalidity has to be submitted before the reexamination is even granted. If there's no apparent evidence of problematic patent claims there's no re-exam by the USPTO. Understand now?
This is the first time I've commented on an AppleInsider story, so here goes. I'm totally surprised that no one has come up with this particular angle on the multi-touch patent before. I'm also not surprised that some one or some company has anonymously submitted this "challenge" to the USPTO considering how much money is involved. Now, does anyone remember the Microsoft Table Top Computer? It is/was completely dependent on "multi-touch" although designed with multiple hands/fingers in it's operation. It was developed in "2007" prior to the patent application for multi-touch by Apple Inc. and Steve Jobs (and others) in 2008. I'm not a MS lover either (I actually used to hate the company for stealing Apple's ideas back in the day to develop Windows), but it would seem to me that they came up with the original idea for multi-touch and actually developed a prototype product for it's use. The mechanics were different, as the Table Top Computer used multiple cameras in it's operation rather than a touchscreen surface, but the concept seems to me to be similar enough. Now the next question is where did MS get their idea for this concept? Was it from that same company that Apple purchased for the technology, the one mentioned in a prior post? Time will tell us the answers but in the meantime I hope Apple, Inc. gets that Samsung payment they nonetheless deserve for Samsung's blatant copying of the original iPhone 3GS look and feel...
Pathetic is US Patent and its principles. Check European. Those who lived and studied in Europe laugh of US Patent principles. I actually could smartly sneak pen and mouse definition and get USPTO patent. In Europe, engineering students (Masters) are required to take classes in patenting so no "smart-boy" lawyer could do some idiotic claims.
Guess what my friend who is from European university was writing technical reviews for such patent firm that protected large corporations in the USA. Now I hear they have firm that really works on helping people with real innovations here in the USA and not some idiotic patents used for corporate wars. I hear that competitor of Apple visits that place from to time
Although stating heuristics for base of command sounds innovative in fact it is not. It is the way we all function every day prior to Apple's "discovery". You cannot patent common science or laws of nature. Still not understandable? Go get education overseas. You may even learn how GSM networks was born that has a lot with US patenting system.
Now, does anyone remember the Microsoft Table Top Computer? It is/was completely dependent on "multi-touch" although designed with multiple hands/fingers in it's operation. It was developed in "2007" prior to the patent application for multi-touch by Apple Inc. and Steve Jobs (and others) in 2008. I'm not a MS lover either (I actually used to hate the company for stealing Apple's ideas back in the day to develop Windows), but it would seem to me that they came up with the original idea for multi-touch and actually developed a prototype product for it's use.
The original Surface was in no way, shape, or form the "original idea for multitouch". Particularly since it didn't exist until after the introduction of the iPhone.
it's quite clear Apple has accounted for these potential actions.
Dig through the extensive reporting at PatentlyApple.com and you'll notice Apple is skating to where the puck will be and owning the touch patent wars.
Apple has dozens of newly granted Multi-touch patents.
As do others (Google has been granted several as an example). At some point all the big players are going to have to settle as they all have pieces of the puzzle in their inventory.
Comments
Originally Posted by Techstalker
You don't get the point. Patent office is under funded. Patents come in at a rapid pace
Oh, I get the point; you're claiming the entire system is a fraud, invalidating every single patent since [insert arbitrary date here], forcing every single lawsuit since [date] to be invalidated on the grounds that every single patent since [date] is false.
That doesn't work.
Its gotten to a point where the Patent offices job of determining validity of a patent has been pushed unto the courts.
And guess what. There was a lawsuit that involved this patent. It… *drumroll* …was upheld. End of story.
Yeah but not reexamined.
This is usually what happens.
Company A sues company B over a patent.
Company B or company B's friend/s goes to the Patent office and says what the hell reexamine these patents!
Now what happens is either both parties agree to the reexamination in order to take validity out of the hands of the jury, or company A decides to let the jury handle it or both decide to let the jury handle it taken it out the patent office.
So in the Apple vs Samsung case, the rubber banding patent was upheld by the Jury.
But that doesn't matter, because in May, one of samsung's friends (we all know its google) challenged Apple patents.
Patent office reexamination trumps jury.
So if the rubber banding invalidity gets held up by the patent office doesn't matter what the jury says.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
And it was granted… why?
Incompetents in the Patent Office...Plain and simple....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Oh, I get the point; you're claiming the entire system is a fraud, invalidating every single patent since [insert arbitrary date here], forcing every single lawsuit since [date] to be invalidated on the grounds that every single patent since [date] is false.
That doesn't work.
And guess what. There was a lawsuit that involved this patent. It… *drumroll* …was upheld. End of story.
You take this stuff too personally. First you already noted the word preliminary, suggesting it's still up for appeal. The patent system itself isn't perfect, which is why it has ways to challenge these things. I wouldn't care if all of these patents asserted on both sides received closer scrutiny. It might lighten the amount of long term litigation. The trials are dumb anyway. These things should be handled by expert review and binding arbitration rather than a group of people who can't possibly absorb all of the information delivered in that time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sranger
Incompetents in the Patent Office...Plain and simple....
I certainly question the competency of the USPTO, but it also doesn't help that Apple massively abuses the system. For example, their 'Siri' patent application was submitted to the USPTO a mind-blowing 10 times before finally being accepted! When you are able to spam the USPTO like this with patent applications, of course a few are going to 'sneak through the cracks'.
Originally Posted by hmm
The patent system itself isn't perfect, which is why it has ways to challenge these things.
That's called a lawsuit. It's already done. The time and place for the patent to be invalidated was the lawsuit involving it. That didn't happen. It's not invalid.
The trials are dumb anyway.
Ri~ght…
There's absolutely nothing unusual about a patents claims being trimmed or the patent tossed out altogether on reexamination by the USPTO. Nearly 15% of patents are invalidated altogether and another 63% of them trimmed back after an ex-parte reexam (like this was). Inter-partes reexams are even more successful with fully 90% of the questioned patents tossed or their claims amended.
So whats the difference between the two? In an ex parte reexam the entity or person requesting it can remain anonymous. The downside is that they cannot participate in the process. Once they submit the reexamination request accompanied by the appropriate evidence of invalidity they're done. Everything from that point is between the patent office and the patent holder with no input permitted by the challenger. If the outcome isn't to their liking then tough.
An inter-parte reexam requires the challenger to to be identified. The big advantage tho is that they remain in the discussion and negotiations between patentee and patent office. They can argue their points, disagree with the patent holder and/or patent office, submit more supporting paperwork if needed and appeal the decision if it's unfavorable to them. For these reasons inter-parte exams are more common, and of course more successful. This particular case was not one of those, perhaps showing the strength of the submitted proof of invalidity.
There's nothing devious about having a patent challenged, nor even having it invalidated. It happens. . . often!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
That's called a lawsuit. It's already done. The time and place for the patent to be invalidated was the lawsuit involving it. That didn't happen. It's not invalid.
Ri~ght…
I don't think there's a final ruling yet TS. That's part of what the hearing yesterday was about. That piece of Apple's win could still be tossed or modified by the court I believe. Not entirely positive but I'll do some more research.
In any event this wasn't at all unexpected. Judge Koh herself felt that particular patent would be invalidated.
EDIT: The discussion of how to handle likely patent invalidity yesterday in Judge Koh's courtroom involved Apple's asserted '381 "rubber-band" patent which was also found invalid by the USPTO back in late October. It was not the '949 touch patent discussed here and asserted against Samsung in a lawsuit begun last year in a separate tho related case.
I'd be curious to know how man Samsung patents have been invalidated that we never hear about since all people seem to care about are Apple patents. When I searched USPTO's database I saw a number of "rounded rectangle" design patents awarded to Samsung. Why would you patent something if you weren't prepared to defend it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogifan
According to a poster on MacRumors the Samsung trial did not involve this patent. If that's the case I can't see it changing the outcome of the trial. Of course it's a bad time for this to become public,
The '949 patent discussed here was included in Apple's infringement claims against Samsung AFAIK.
EDIT: I confirmed that Apple went after Samsung with this patent, but not in the Billion Dollar case. It was a different suit heard by the same Judge Koh where Apple demanded an injunction on Sammy's Galaxy devices including the Nexus for infringing on the '949 touch patent.
http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/10/14/u-s-judge-koh-says-samsung-tablets-infringe-on-apples-patents/
Thanks Rogifan!
Nothing to see here until there's a final ruling. Has anyone looked at the patent? It's not some simple "if you touch the screen then this happens". It is a very detailed patent with a significant number of other patent references and detailed descriptions. As with many other re-examinations, the USPTO simply took the easy way out - they passed the ball back to Apple's court. Now Apple has to spend the time & money to convince the USPTO their patent is valid. The USPTO just didn't want to make a ruling with such far-reaching implications based on their very limited resources to examine patents.
I see GG has brought up the same stats as the last thread on the previous patent Apple had preliminarily invalidated. This time you never provided the links to your sources. There's one big flaw with your numbers and the studies you took them from (unless you found a new source) - those numbers aren't broken down by industry or company.
The chances of Jim-Bob getting his "engine that runs on water" patent invalidated are very good. Likewise, smaller companies who can't afford to do the research or pay lawyers to check things over would also have a higher chance of getting their patents invalidated. Companies like Apple spend a lot of money on R&D and have legal departments specifically assigned just to deal with patent issues. You can bet Apple has covered all their bases with their patent applications and the percentage of patents they get invalidated wouldn't be anywhere near the numbers GG provided.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
That's called a lawsuit. It's already done. The time and place for the patent to be invalidated was the lawsuit involving it. That didn't happen. It's not invalid.
Ri~ght…
Lawsuits don't necessarily determine validity. When they come up, these things tend to be examined. I mentioned the jury issue as it's not possible for a random group of jurors to be knowledgeable on these matters. I mentioned the same thing about the Motorola case. It should be determined by binding arbitration rather than a panel of jurors with little background knowledge on the subject. It's just a very poor system for dealing with such things.
Also at least the US Apple vs Samsung lawsuit didn't involve this patent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee
I see GG has brought up the same stats as the last thread on the previous patent Apple had preliminarily invalidated. This time you never provided the links to your sources. There's one big flaw with your numbers and the studies you took them from (unless you found a new source) - those numbers aren't broken down by industry or company.
The chances of Jim-Bob getting his "engine that runs on water" patent invalidated are very good. Likewise, smaller companies who can't afford to do the research or pay lawyers to check things over would also have a higher chance of getting their patents invalidated. Companies like Apple spend a lot of money on R&D and have legal departments specifically assigned just to deal with patent issues. You can bet Apple has covered all their bases with their patent applications and the percentage of patents they get invalidated wouldn't be anywhere near the numbers GG provided.
http://www.andrewskurth.com/pressroom-publications-802.html
http://kppb.com/kppb/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=79&catid=3&Itemid=29
Your always welcome to bring your own citations into the discussion, particularly if they disagree with what I've written. Promise I won''t toss a troll tag at you for challenging me.
You're also appear to be confused with the stats. They don't show that 90% of all issued patents have validity issues. The numbers are for challenged and re-examined patents for which evidence of invalidity has to be submitted before the reexamination is even granted. If there's no apparent evidence of problematic patent claims there's no re-exam by the USPTO. Understand now?
This is the first time I've commented on an AppleInsider story, so here goes. I'm totally surprised that no one has come up with this particular angle on the multi-touch patent before. I'm also not surprised that some one or some company has anonymously submitted this "challenge" to the USPTO considering how much money is involved. Now, does anyone remember the Microsoft Table Top Computer? It is/was completely dependent on "multi-touch" although designed with multiple hands/fingers in it's operation. It was developed in "2007" prior to the patent application for multi-touch by Apple Inc. and Steve Jobs (and others) in 2008. I'm not a MS lover either (I actually used to hate the company for stealing Apple's ideas back in the day to develop Windows), but it would seem to me that they came up with the original idea for multi-touch and actually developed a prototype product for it's use. The mechanics were different, as the Table Top Computer used multiple cameras in it's operation rather than a touchscreen surface, but the concept seems to me to be similar enough. Now the next question is where did MS get their idea for this concept? Was it from that same company that Apple purchased for the technology, the one mentioned in a prior post? Time will tell us the answers but in the meantime I hope Apple, Inc. gets that Samsung payment they nonetheless deserve for Samsung's blatant copying of the original iPhone 3GS look and feel...
Guess what my friend who is from European university was writing technical reviews for such patent firm that protected large corporations in the USA. Now I hear they have firm that really works on helping people with real innovations here in the USA and not some idiotic patents used for corporate wars. I hear that competitor of Apple visits that place from to time
Although stating heuristics for base of command sounds innovative in fact it is not. It is the way we all function every day prior to Apple's "discovery". You cannot patent common science or laws of nature. Still not understandable? Go get education overseas. You may even learn how GSM networks was born that has a lot with US patenting system.
(Euro living in this mess)
Originally Posted by shnotes
Now, does anyone remember the Microsoft Table Top Computer? It is/was completely dependent on "multi-touch" although designed with multiple hands/fingers in it's operation. It was developed in "2007" prior to the patent application for multi-touch by Apple Inc. and Steve Jobs (and others) in 2008. I'm not a MS lover either (I actually used to hate the company for stealing Apple's ideas back in the day to develop Windows), but it would seem to me that they came up with the original idea for multi-touch and actually developed a prototype product for it's use.
The original Surface was in no way, shape, or form the "original idea for multitouch". Particularly since it didn't exist until after the introduction of the iPhone.
With now over 1200 granted patents for 2012 [a good 30 or more for multi-touch and none from purchased corporations]; and today's submission of 87 more patents filed [URL=http://www.latestpatents.com/apple-patent-applications-published-on-06-december-2012/#more-20136]http://www.latestpatents.com/apple-patent-applications-published-on-06-december-2012/#more-20136[/URL]
it's quite clear Apple has accounted for these potential actions.
Dig through the extensive reporting at PatentlyApple.com and you'll notice Apple is skating to where the puck will be and owning the touch patent wars.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
Apple has dozens of newly granted Multi-touch patents.
As do others (Google has been granted several as an example). At some point all the big players are going to have to settle as they all have pieces of the puzzle in their inventory.