USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung • Hacker News Board

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#71

Post by sigzero » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 4:26 PM UTC

dctoedt wrote: post #55

Some procedural observations: 1. The rejection was signed by a primary examiner (i.e., someone who has been at the USPTO for awhile and not a rookie) and was approved by a supervisory primary examiner who oversees reexamination proceedings. 2. The rejection is not final (see the unchecked box b near the top of the first page), therefore Apple can and will try to get the examiner to withdraw the rejection. 3. The reje…

So can Apple now sue the USPTO because they successfully defended it in court costing millions of dollars and now a YEAR later the USPTO invalidates it? I hope so.

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#72

Post by a-priori » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 4:38 PM UTC

dodo53 wrote: post #46

a-priori wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you referring to this comment of mine? "So I had an idea the other day for a patent reform: property tax on patents. As long as a company wants to keep the monopoly rights over a patented invention, they are taxed a percentage of the patent's market value each year. They can choose either to pay that tax or sell the patent to someone else. The government would offer to buy any patent for its market value, using t…

possibly, doesn't seem to be exactly like I remember but is quite possibly my memory fail. Although it's not clear in your comment where the market value comes from (e.g. is it essentially the government is the market maker? that seems like a bad idea as central authority is unlikely to understand and price everything correctly). What stops people from understating the patent value? EDIT - I guess main point is - is…

One way you may be able to do it is to make patents always available for sale at their declared value. By declaring a patent's value, anyone (including the government itself) can offer to buy it from you for that amount of money. You must then either accept the offer, or block the sale by increasing its value beyond what the other party is willing to pay.

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#73

Post by neya » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 4:40 PM UTC

DigitalJack wrote: post #61

neya wrote: post #50

This is seriously good news for everyone. What this means to me as a start-up guy is that I can tomorrow start a phone company based on an Open Source OS like Android and still not worry about getting sued for trivial BS patents like these. I hope more of such patents are invalidated.

The patent is still being "prosecuted" by the USPTO. The actions aren't final on this patent yet.

Thanks, the title is kind of misleading then.

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#74

Post by getsaf » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 4:43 PM UTC

sigzero wrote: post #71

dctoedt wrote: post #55

Some procedural observations: 1. The rejection was signed by a primary examiner (i.e., someone who has been at the USPTO for awhile and not a rookie) and was approved by a supervisory primary examiner who oversees reexamination proceedings. 2. The rejection is not final (see the unchecked box b near the top of the first page), therefore Apple can and will try to get the examiner to withdraw the rejection. 3. The reje…

So can Apple now sue the USPTO because they successfully defended it in court costing millions of dollars and now a YEAR later the USPTO invalidates it? I hope so.

If they can (and do) I fear that this will discourage the USPTO from invalidating any other patent review cases for fear of being sued out the yang.

If there is a plus side, this may affect the passability of future patent requests but I figure this will be less likely to occur and more likely that the USPTO will simply stop invalidating patent review cases. For the good of the country (world) I hope I'm wrong.

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#75

Post by getsaf » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 4:51 PM UTC

fpgeek wrote: post #3

This just helps illustrate the absurdity of the US patent system. Samsung and Apple have already been at this for over a year and a half (longer if you count their pre-lawsuit discussions). Now, after we've been through lawsuit filings, discovery, back-and-forth over injunctions and a trial and gotten a verdict... The patent office turns around and says: "On second thought, we shouldn't have issued that patent in the…

"Successful reexaminations should be a rare, exceptional case in a properly functioning patent system."

Unfortunately some 70% of reexaminations are confirmed to have some sort of issues. This is very shaky ground to be used to routinely afford millions/billions in damages and effectively "lock up" ideas that are obvious or unpatentable.

edit: add source http://ptolitigationcenter.com/essentials/common-questions/#...

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#76

Post by ankitaggarwal » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 5:14 PM UTC

ircmaxell wrote: post #58

ankitaggarwal wrote: post #23

Sad. This is not a generic patent. It only seemed obvious now. Its not something that will stop innovation (as people scream about). A scrollbar implemented without rubber-band effect will do just fine. And why was this never implemented before anyways. There is all this hype that "Apple is Bad because they sued Samsung". But considering everything, they had no other choice legally. They had to make a case on some gr…

> But considering everything, they had no other choice legally. Patents are not Trademarks. Patents are valid and legal even if you don't enforce them (where trademarks become invalid if you don't enforce them). So no, they did have a choice. In fact, they had 3: 1. They could have not gotten the patent at all. This could open them up to legal liability if someone else got it and sued them. 2. They could have kept it…

Thanks for clearing things up. What I am trying to say is, they had no other choice to send the message across that stop ripping off apple products. The patent they sued samsung over can be considered silly but what choice they had? I bet if this verdict was not given, next galaxy series would've been like iPhone 5. It was not about money, it was more about market position because what samsung was basically doing was placing ripped off versions of apple products in market. And i don't think this is a generic patent.

and this is what I call abuse of system. Just look at the patents mentioned in the link. Something that paul or its company was not even remotely associated. http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/27/microsoft-co-founder-paul...

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#77

Post by hristov » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 5:29 PM UTC

sigzero wrote: post #71

dctoedt wrote: post #55

Some procedural observations: 1. The rejection was signed by a primary examiner (i.e., someone who has been at the USPTO for awhile and not a rookie) and was approved by a supervisory primary examiner who oversees reexamination proceedings. 2. The rejection is not final (see the unchecked box b near the top of the first page), therefore Apple can and will try to get the examiner to withdraw the rejection. 3. The reje…

So can Apple now sue the USPTO because they successfully defended it in court costing millions of dollars and now a YEAR later the USPTO invalidates it? I hope so.

No.

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#78

Post by hristov » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 5:36 PM UTC

fpgeek wrote: post #3

This just helps illustrate the absurdity of the US patent system. Samsung and Apple have already been at this for over a year and a half (longer if you count their pre-lawsuit discussions). Now, after we've been through lawsuit filings, discovery, back-and-forth over injunctions and a trial and gotten a verdict... The patent office turns around and says: "On second thought, we shouldn't have issued that patent in the…

Perhaps you are right but it is much better to have the reexamination process than not to have it. There were too many computer programming patents too easily granted in the nineties and the 00s. That is a fact it already happened so saying "it would be better if this hadnt happened" is completely pointless now.

It is a good thing that a reexamination process exists to address bad patents when they are the focus of an expensive lawsuit.

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#79

Post by BenoitEssiambre » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 5:54 PM UTC

esolyt wrote: post #15

Shooti wrote: post #2

Good news for Android scrolling if this sticks. This is probably whats keeping Google from implementing the "glass tilt" effect from the stock 4.0/4.1 home screen system wide.

I actually prefer Android's current overscroll effect.

Yup. I always found the rubber banding to be kind of an odd way to indicate the end of a scrolling area. The problem is that instead of something indicating unambiguously the end of a view, the movement continues to happen momentarily as if there was more to come and only gradually stops. Users end up not knowing if they botched their finger gesture or if they are actually at a boundary. Even as an experienced user, I sometimes retry pulling a few times to confirm there's nothing more.

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#80

Post by makomk » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 6:08 PM UTC

saurik wrote: post #32

So, one of the patents that was claimed to invalidate this patent is another patent from Apple; does that patent not have any of the same ramifications? (I guess the key claim was #19, and that was also invalidated by the other prior patent?) > ...U.S. Patent No. 7,786,975 on a "continuous scrolling list with acceleration," with named inventors Bas Ording, Scott Forstall, Greg Christie, Stephen O. Lemay and Imran Cha…

Why should the courts let them have another bite at the apple, though? Apple ought to have known that one of their patents was likely to invalidate the one they'd sued over because they wrote and filed both of them. In fact, in a sensible world the courts ought to take a closer look at why they were trying to patent something for which they themselves had prior art.