Sunday, July 1, 2012

A list of Android infringements


Florian Mueller of Fosspatents has compiled a list of findings by courts and the ITC that Android devices infringe on 11 different Apple and Microsoft patents that the courts deemed valid.
The following list is in chronological order of the decisions and excludes any rulings that were overturned on review or appeal:

   1.

      EP2059868 on a "portable electronic device for photo management"

      I call this one the "photo gallery page-flipping" patent.

      The Rechtbank 's-Gravenhage (a court in the Dutch city of The Hague) deemed this patent valid and infringed in an August 24, 2011 decision granting Apple a preliminary injunction against certain Samsung smartphones. On March 1, 2012, the Munich I Regional Court granted Apple a permanent injunction over this patent against Motorola Mobility, now a wholly-owned Google subsidiary
.
   2.

      U.S. Patent No. 7,469,381 on "list scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display"

      Also known as the "overscroll bounce" or "rubber-banding" patent. I once called it "Apple's favorite make-Android-awkward patent".

      The United States District Court for the Northern District of California deemed this patent valid and infringed in a December 2, 2011 decision denying an Apple motion for a preliminary injunction against four Samsung devices. The denial was based on an insufficient showing of the nexus between the identified infringement and the alleged harm to Apple's business. Nevertheless, if the infringement and validity findings are upheld, Apple can still win an injunction after the upcoming trial or at a minimum seek damages for past and future infringement.

   3.

      U.S. Design Patent No. D618,677 on an "electronic device"

      This is an iPhone-related design patent.

      In the aforementioned December 2, 2011 decision, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California deemed this design patent valid (with a narrowed scope) and infringed, calling it a "close question" and denying an injunction for balance-of-hardship reasons.

   4.

      U.S. Patent No. 5,946,647 on a "system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data"

      I dubbed this one the "data tapping" patent, a term that has since been adopted by a number of journalists.

      The United States International Trade Commission (ITC) deemed this patent valid and infringed in a December 19, 2011 order of a U.S. import ban against HTC.

      I published the winning claim chart.

      In a June 29, 2012 order of a preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Nexus smartphone, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California deemed this patent valid and infringed, but denied an injunction on the basis of this patent for balance-of-hardships reasons.

      Motorola Mobility failed with summary judgment motions in a litigation in the Northern District of Illinois to prove this patent invalid or not infringed. The recent dismissal of that lawsuit was based on other reasons than the merit of Apple's infringement claims.

   5.

      EP1964022 on "unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image"

      This is the first slide-to-unlock patent.

      On February 16, 2012, the Munich I Regional Court granted Apple an injunction over this patent against Motorola Mobility.

   6.

      U.S. Patent No. 6,370,566 on "generating meeting requests and group scheduling from a mobile device"

      On May 18, 2012, the ITC ordered a U.S. import ban against Motorola's Android-based devices that infringe this Microsoft patent.

   7.

      EP1304891 on "communicating multi-part messages between cellular devices using a standardized interface"

      On May 24, 2012, the Munich I Regional Court granted Microsoft an injunction over this patent against Motorola's Android-based devices. This was the first Microsoft v. Google decision ever. It came down only days after Google completed its acquisition of Motorola Mobility. The ruling is already being enforced in Germany.

   8.

      U.S. Design Patent No. D504,889 on an "electronic device"

      This is an iPad-related design patent.

      On June 27, 2012, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted Apple a preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1 following a partly-successful appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

      In the summer of 2011, the Düsseldorf Regional Court had granted Apple a preliminary injunction against the same product over the European equivalent, a so-called Community design, of this U.S. design patent. The appeals court, the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court, later upheld the injunction but did so on the basis of German unfair competition law, not on the grounds of the asserted Community design.

   9.

      U.S. Patent No. 8,086,604 on a "universal interface for retrieval of information in a computer system"

      This is a patent on Siri-style unified search.

      On June 29, 2012, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted Apple a preliminary injunction against the Samsung/Google Galaxy Nexus smartphone over this patent.

      Oddly, earlier that week Google placed a lot of emphasis on voice search at its Google I/O developer conference, where it announced that more than 1 million Android-based devices are now activated on a daily basis.

  10.

      U.S. Patent No. 8,046,721 on "unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image"

      This is the second slide-to-unlock patent.

      In its aforementioned Galaxy Nexus decision, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California deemed Samsung and Google to infringe on this patent, which it considered valid. The injunction was not based on this patent only for balance-of-hardship reasons. Apple may still win a permanent injunction or, at least, seek damages if the preliminary findings of infringement and validity are upheld.

  11.

      U.S. Patent No. 8,074,172 on a "method, system, and graphical user interface for providing word recommendations"

      This is an autocorrect patent.

      In its aforementioned Galaxy Nexus decision, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California deemed Samsung and Google to infringe on this patent, which it considered valid. The injunction was not based on this patent only for balance-of-hardship reasons. Apple may still win a permanent injunction or, at least, seek damages if the preliminary findings of infringement and validity are upheld.

more here

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