While Apple's iconic Slide to Unlock mechanism for unlocking their touch-screen mobile devices was protected by United States courts, but it seems they are not so lucky in Germany.
http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/04/apples-slide-to-unlock-patent.html
Apple hasn't had much luck in Europe in general lately. Many of their design patents that are upheld in the US do not count as much in Europe where the law deems that the patent needs to solve a technical problem, and this is one of those examples.
The decision is appeal-able and Apple will undoubtedly take advantage of that, but this is still a huge win for Samsung, Google, and other recent opponents of Apple in patent litigation cases. It's interesting how the same cases in different countries can have such different results.
It's kinda surprising how different the patent laws across the world can be, this might actually make it a bit more confusing for people who just want to research the law in one nation and then just kinda copy and paste throughout for other nations.
ReplyDeleteThis is still blowing up! International patent law is frustrating, though really interesting in Germany. Thanks for sharing!
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