The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected claims of an
Apple patent that figures prominently in a patent infringement lawsuit against
Samsung Electronics, according to documents filed by the South Korean company
in a U.S. federal court.
The 21 claims of the
patent were rejected by the USPTO in a "final office action," as they
were anticipated by previous patents or unpatentable. Known as the
"pinch-to-zoom" patent, it covers the ability to distinguish between
the scrolling movement of one finger and two-fingers gestures like
pinch-to-zoom on a touch-screen to activate certain functions.
Apple has up to two
months to respond to the USPTO decision. In a filing in April after USPTO rejected multiple claims
of another patent in a similar final office action, Apple said it had further
options, including appeal to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and seeking
judicial review.
Claim eight of the patent
was involved in Apple's lawsuit against Samsung in the court, according to a
filing Sunday by Samsung in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of
California, San Jose Division. A jury last August awarded Apple US$1.05 billion
in damages, but the court has ordered a partial retrial to review the damages
to be paid to the iPhone maker.
The jury found at trial that 21 of 24
Samsung smartphones and tablets infringed claim 8 of U.S. Patent No.7,844,915('915
patent), Samsung said in its filing on Sunday. The claim relates to
"determining whether the event object invokes a scroll or gesture
operation by distinguishing between a single input point applied to the
touch-sensitive display that is interpreted as the scroll operation and two or
more input points applied to the touch-sensitive display that are interpreted as
the gesture operation," according to a USPTO document filed in the court
by Samsung.
The USPTO ruled claim eight was anticipated in U.S. Patent No. 7,724,242 awarded to Daniel W. Hillis and Bran
Ferren. "Hillis teaches distinguishing the number of contact points and
determining whether the event object matches a gesture pattern," the USPTO
wrote in its decision.
The USPTO rejected in April multiple claims of another patent
that figured in the lawsuit, known as "overscroll bounce" patent.
Apple, however, said in a filing that the reexamination is not finished, and it
is entitled to file a response to the action which may result in a withdrawal
of the rejection or certification of the claims under reexamination.
The company also raised the possibility that it may appeal to
the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, and if unsuccessful, may seek judicial
review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit or the U.S.
District Court for the District of Columbia. A similar filing is likely from
Apple in connection with the rejection of the '915 patent, even as Samsung is
expected to argue for lower damages. The jury awarded damages to Apple with
regard to all but two products found to infringe the '915 patent, Samsung said
in its filing
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