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Tag: slide to unlock

  • Apple ‘Slide to Unlock’ Patent Is Invalid, Rules German Court

    Apple ‘Slide to Unlock’ Patent Is Invalid, Rules German Court

    Apple’s patents on its “slide to unlock” feature on its iOS devices are invalid – at least in Germany.

    A German appeals court has stuck by a 2013 ruling which canceled the company’s patent. According to the court, Apple’s slide to unlock feature is actually pretty similar to one on a phone made by Swedish company Neonode – a year before the original iPhone even debuted.

    The court said the patent isn’t “based on an invention”

    “This user-friendly display was already suggested by the state of the art,” said the court. “The contested patent thus isn’t based on an invention.”

    The US version of the patent is still active, and has been since 2009. Here’s what the patent covers, specifically:

    A device with a touch-sensitive display may be unlocked via gestures performed on the touch-sensitive display. The device is unlocked if contact with the display corresponds to a predefined gesture for unlocking the device. The device displays one or more unlock images with respect to which the predefined gesture is to be performed in order to unlock the device. The performance of the predefined gesture with respect to the unlock image may include moving the unlock image to a predefined location and/or moving the unlock image along a predefined path. The device may also display visual cues of the predefined gesture on the touch screen to remind a user of the gesture.

    While some would call this an example of the overly vague patents that haunt the system, Apple has defended this patent many times.

    Though in recent months, courts have seemed skeptical of it.

    Image via Oyvind Solstad, Flickr Creative Commons

  • Apple: All Your Unlocking Mechanisms Are Belong To Us

    How many of you use a “swipe to unlock” mechanism to gain access to your smartphones? Quite a few I would guess. The finger-dragging-across-the-touch-screen method of unlocking phones is probably most known for being a feature on the iPhone, but tons of other devices use a similar mechanism.

    Today, Apple owns that mechanism, as they were just granted a patent by the United States Patent & Trademark Office. The patent, number 8,046,721, was filed back in December of 2005. Here’s how it is described:

    A device with a touch-sensitive display may be unlocked via gestures performed on the touch-sensitive display. The device is unlocked if contact with the display corresponds to a predefined gesture for unlocking the device. The device displays one or more unlock images with respect to which the predefined gesture is to be performed in order to unlock the device. The performance of the predefined gesture with respect to the unlock image may include moving the unlock image to a predefined location and/or moving the unlock image along a predefined path. The device may also display visual cues of the predefined gesture on the touch screen to remind a user of the gesture.

    Sounds a lot like how many smartphones operate these days, doesn’t it?

    I guess we can add this to the growing list of slightly absurd entries into the patent system. Although most would agree that patenting a motion on a touch screen is a little silly, it doesn’t change the fact that that’s how the patent system currently works. Don’t hate the player, hate the game I guess.

    And it’s kind of funny, but all of those Android devices that users “slide to unlock” are now infringing on patents.

    [Hat tip to 9to5Mac]