Ondrej Holzman The German Federal Court of Justice has invalidated Apple's patent for the gesture used to unlock its iPhones and iPads - the so-called slide-to-unlock, when you slide your finger across the display to unlock it. According to the court's decision, this patent is not a new invention and therefore does not need patent protection.
Judges in Karlsruhe said the European patent, which Apple applied for in 2006 and was granted four years later, was not new because the Swedish firm's mobile phone already had a similar gesture before the iPhone.
The original decision of the German patent court against which Apple appealed was thus confirmed. The Federal Court of Justice is the highest authority that can decide on patents in Germany.
On the locked screens of all iPhones and iPads, we find a slider that, when moved from left to right with our finger, unlocks the device. According to the court, however, this is not a sufficiently innovative matter. Even the display of the scroll bar does not mean any technological progress, but is only a graphical aid to facilitate use.
According to experts, the latest decision of the German Federal Court of Justice is in line with the global trend of granting patents only for genuine technological innovation. At the same time, IT companies often applied for patents, for example, for self-designed user interfaces, rather than for new inventions.
The invalidation of the "slide-to-unlock" patent may affect Apple's ongoing dispute with Motorola Mobility. In 2012, the Californian giant in Munich won a lawsuit based on the mentioned patent, but Motorola appealed and now that the patent is no longer valid, it can rely on the court case again.
It was about time. Finally someone had sense.
People should have had sense when it came to the introduction of patents on SW around 2003, if I'm not mistaken, this is unfortunately just a consequence :-(
I am talking about Europe, US/Japan introduced it earlier…
I strongly disagree (meaning the court's decision). The argument that "in accordance with the global trend" patents should be granted for real TECHNOLOGICAL innovations is ossified and belongs to the last century.
At a time when the touch display is de facto identical for all manufacturers, the difference in the comfort of control is precisely in the user interface. The entire original iPhone OS was broken. Reduced scrolling distances, pinch-to-zoom... Today, when five-year-old children see a couple of dots on the bottom edge of the screen on a tablet, they don't think of squeezing them, but move the entire image with their finger.
The basics of UI that Apple set then (including Slide-to-unlock) are the global standard today.
If these aren't innovations worthy of a patent, I don't know...