We are all familiar with Apple’s wonderful patent holdings. One of said patents that they have been forcefully using against Samsung and HTC has been their slide-to-unlock patent. It finally appears that at least one judge has decided that this patent is not a relevant issue in the UK. That’s right, Judge Christopher Floyd ruled that three of the four patents that Apple was accusing HTC of infringing upon are not even legally valid. The fourth patent, one regarding photo-management, is a valid claim, but was determined that HTC didn’t infringe on it.
HTC is of course happy with the ruling, Apple is not. Still standing their ground that with a statement that “Competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.” Not all that surprising. What does this mean for the rest of the world? Not a whole lot really. Cases against Samsung and HTC devices are still raging across the globe with Apple pushing these same four patents. Even though the UK calls BS on Apples claims, German courts and even courts here in the U.S. could rule either direction.
Source: Bloomberg via Phandroid
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That’s right…about time some of these judges start throwing out these baseless non patents. There are just limited ways one
can interact with a touch screen device…slide, swipe, pinch to zoom, tap, double tap etc..hence all these operations should never be claimed by any company. Lets hope other judges oin other countries knock these down as well..
[...] Apple’s slide-to-unlock patent not valid in HTC case says UK Judge [...]