German Court Rules Apple's Slide-to-Unlock Patent Invalid

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Posted April 5, 2013 at 1:40pm by iClarified

The Bundespatentgericht, Germany's Federal Patent Court, has ruled that Apple's patent for 'unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image' is invalid and of the 14 amendments proposed by Apple were acceptable, reports FOSS Patents.

Today's decision followed a full-day hearing before a panel of five judges (including three judges with an engineering background), which Judge Vivian Sredl presided over. It can and will be appealed by Apple to the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice). At the end of the hearing, counsel for Apple moved to present a couple of amended claims only with a view to the appeal. Apple, Samsung and Google already knew in December that the Federal Patent Court was inclined to invalidate this patent.

The same court is set to rule on one of Samsung's standard-essential wireless patents next week.

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German Court Rules Apple's Slide-to-Unlock Patent Invalid

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NoGoodNick - April 5, 2013 at 4:25pm

Unfortunately, patent law is growing increasingly difficult, as each country invalidates varies entities based on their own views of their own self-interests, and thus any given company can't count on ANY of their patents holding up universally any more. While some patents may seem burdensome, the fact that Samsung originally stole so much from Apple proves why it's necessary, as it's only recently that they've started producing any innovations of their own. Right now, Patent law is like Swiss Cheese, full of holes as each country applies whichever ones they feel inclined too.

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dark_destroyer - April 5, 2013 at 3:45pm

Serves them rite !!

mhar - April 5, 2013 at 3:26pm

What a tool apple are everything has a Patent