The Mannheim Regional Court Judge (Andrea Voss) has issued a stay of proceedings in the case, the likely outcome of which will be that the court will find the patent to be invalid. According to German ‘patent suit’ junkie, Florian Mueller, courts in Germany issue a stay of this nature only if the likelihood of the defendant demonstrating invalidation of said patent are in excess of 80%.
The real wonder here is not that Samsung is on track to have the suit thrown out, but that Apple was able to convince the EU regulators that the patent should have been granted in the first place. Recently a Dutch court upheld the patent’s validity, forcing Samsung to create a workaround, and in March, Motorola was found to infringe on the same patent by a court in Munich.
This Mannheim decision, though, is likely to see a reversal of the previous rulings against the Android makers if the court’s finding is that the patent was indeed invalid. Expect both Samsung and Motorola to begin actions to have the patent invalidated EU wide.
As Mueller comments, a potential victory in every one of the nuisance patent suits that Apple launches against its Android-running competitors helps make iOS that bit different from Android and Apple likely sees the expense of defending frivolous patents such as the ‘page flip’ and ‘swipe to unlock’ examples as just part of doing business. And let’s face it, it’s chump change for the iGadget maker as Apple has very deep pockets indeed.
However, Apple’s record of patent successes is poor and one wonders when the courts in their various jurisdictions will begin tightening up the pre-trial processes to more carefully examine the validity of each patent in question before accepting the action. When Steve Jobs announced the iPhone in 2007, he was famously quoted as saying “Boy have we patented it”, a somewhat ironic comment that seems to indicate that this litigation strategy was a cornerstone of Apple’s marketing plan for its device from day one.
Mueller reports that another Mannheim patent stoush between Apple as plaintive and Samsung as defendant has been delayed until May 11. This is the ‘pinch to zoom’ case where Apple is filing for injunctive relief under Germany’s “Utility Model”, something specific to that country and unlikely to affect the rest of the EU no matter which way the decision goes. Mueller speculates that this latest delay may also be due to an imminent stay of proceedings. If so, like the ‘photo gallery flip’ case above, the likelihood of Apple prevailing would seem very low.
Source: FOSSpatents
No comments:
Post a Comment