German court rejects Apple’s "slide to unlock" patent claim

A German court has rejected Apple's "slide to unlock" patent claim, including the 14 amendments that the company suggested for salvaging the patent application, delivering another setback for the iPhone maker in its legal battle with rivals after the US Patent Office recently invalidated its ''bounce back'' patent.

According to Foss Patents blogger Florian Mueller who is a paid consultant for several tech companies, German federal patent court, Bundespatentgericht, has invalidated all patent claims related to Apple's "slide to unlock" user interface.

Apple had filed cases across Europe seeking ban of sales on some of Samsung and Motorola devices claiming that several of their smartphones infringed on its "slide to unlock" patent.

Although Apple can appeal the ruling, the court ruled that the description given by the company for its European Patent EP1964022 application for "unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image" lacked the technical innovation to be granted a patent.

The court said that the invention described by Apple in the patent is an old software module that several mobile handset manufacturers have brought out similar design workarounds to do the same basic slide to unlock functionality and Apple's application does not meet technical requirement under European patent law.

The ruling comes after the Munich Regional Court in early 2012 granted Apple a permanent injunction against Motorola for infringing its slide to unlock patent, but the Mannheim Regional Court had just a month later rejected a similar plea by Apple against Samsung.

The setback for Apple comes after the US Patent and Trademark Office recently invalidated its ''bounce back'' or "rubber-banding" patent, a ruling that could change the course of the $1-billion patent infringement lawsuit (reduced last month to $598 million) awarded to Apple against Samsung. (See: US Patent Office bounces back Apple's ''rubber-banding" patent)

Both Apple and Samsung are engaged in more than 20 patent lawsuits against each other in 10 countries in four continents despite Samsung being a supplier of certain components to Apple.

The two have failed to agree at cross-licensing deals even after a US Court in May 2012 asked them to come at a settlement.

Apple fired the first salvo in April 2011, accusing Samsung of infringing on three of its design patents and one utility patent, while Samsung retaliated by alleging that Apple infringed on patents covering 3G and UMTS telecommunications technology.

Since then, both companies have launched patent infringement lawsuits against each other, with both of them winning some.