James Delahunty
24 Oct 2012 19:15
Several key touch patents ruled invalid.
The Patent and Trademark Office in the Unites States found that about 20 patents held by the iPad-maker "lack novelty." Some were rejected because there was not significant innovation over technology that existed prior to the patents.
The preliminary ruling from the patent office has been promptly passed to U.S. federal judge Lucy Koh, who is considering an appeal in a California lawsuit that saw Samsung ordered to pay $1.05 billion in damages to Apple. Samsung has appealed the case, suggesting that the jury foreman failed to answer questions truthfully and may have been biased.
Apple alleged that Samsung violated patents by including "overscroll bounce" features in its smartphones, referring the "bouncing" animation that occurs when a user scrolls past the end of a page on a touch-screen device.
More info: FOSS Patents