5 April 2013Patents

German court invalidates Apple’s slide patent

Germany’s Federal Patent Court weighed in on the so-called smartphone wars on Thursday by invalidating Apple's ‘slide-to-unlock’ European patent.

The Bundespatentgericht, which was ruling on a dispute between Apple and Google-owned Motorola Mobility, struck down all of the patent’s claims, as well as 14 amendments proposed by Apple.

Apple is expected to appeal to the Federal Court of Justice (the Bundesgerichtshof), and had already been warned in December that the court was likely to invalidate the patent, which protects the swiping motion when unlocking a mobile device.

The court said on Thursday that the patent did not meet the technical requirements under European law. Specifically, the court said its inventive step – which goes above and beyond the prior art – was merely a form of software, which cannot be protected unless it solves a technical problem.

In February last year, the Munich I Regional Court granted Apple a permanent injunction against Motorola products incorporating the slide-to-unlock feature, with a hearing on the subsequent appeal scheduled for later this month. Thursday’s decision on validity could lead the court to stay the appeal, rather than finding for non-infringement.

Apple has had a rocky time trying to enforce the slide-to-unlock patent, with judges in the UK and the Netherlands invalidating it and German courts rejecting claims that Samsung infringed it. In addition, most of Apple’s competitors in the smartphone market have created a workaround – a design to avoid infringement.

Only two decisions covering the patent have gone in Apple’s favour: one in the US, which ruled on a modified version of the original patent, and one in Germany, which an appeal proceeding will decide on this month.

Neither Apple nor Motorola responded to a request for comment.

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