wraggster
September 26th, 2013, 22:44
"Today the Federal Patent Court of Germany shot down (http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/09/video-of-steve-jobss-iphone.html) an Apple photo gallery bounce-back patent over which Cupertino was/is suing Samsung and Motorola. A panel of five judges found the patent invalid because the relevant patent application was filed only in June 2007 but Steve Jobs already demoed the feature in January 2007 (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etyt4osHgX0). While this wouldn't matter in the U.S., it's a reason for a patent to be invalidated in Europe. For different reasons someone thought the iPhone presentation was a mistake (http://apple.slashdot.org/story/07/01/21/2032239/why-the-iphone-keynote-was-a-mistake). It now turns out that when Steve Jobs said "Boy have we patented it!" his company forgot that public disclosure, even by an inventor, must not take place before a European patent application is filed. But Apple can still sue companies over the Android photo gallery: in addition to this patent it owns a utility model, a special German intellectual property right that has a shorter term (10 years) and a six-month grace period, which is just enough to make sure that history-making Steve Jobs video won't count as prior art.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/09/26/1815251/steve-jobs-video-kills-apple-patent-in-germany
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etyt4osHgX0). While this wouldn't matter in the U.S., it's a reason for a patent to be invalidated in Europe. For different reasons someone thought the iPhone presentation was a mistake (http://apple.slashdot.org/story/07/01/21/2032239/why-the-iphone-keynote-was-a-mistake). It now turns out that when Steve Jobs said "Boy have we patented it!" his company forgot that public disclosure, even by an inventor, must not take place before a European patent application is filed. But Apple can still sue companies over the Android photo gallery: in addition to this patent it owns a utility model, a special German intellectual property right that has a shorter term (10 years) and a six-month grace period, which is just enough to make sure that history-making Steve Jobs video won't count as prior art.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/09/26/1815251/steve-jobs-video-kills-apple-patent-in-germany