This time around, four patents were up in the air, as HTC took Apple to the UK High Court and, visa versa in a counter sue, in an attempt to invalidate European patents used as ammunition by Apple in a previous case in Germany. The four patents covered were for:
- Unlocking a device by performing a gesture on an image.
- A system to determine which elements of a screen were activated by single-finger touches; which were activated multi-finger touches and which ignored touches altogether.
- The use of a multilingual keyboard offering different alphabets on portable device, including mobile phones.
- Letting a user drag an image beyond its limits and then showing it bounce back into place to illustrate that they had reached its furthest edge.
Firstly, the judge ruled that the fourth patent, covering bouncy images, did not apply in HTC's case. More interestingly, however, the judge found all three of Apple's remaining patents to be invalid, taking good note of the evidence we've all seen on YouTube, regarding the Swedish Neonode N1 handset, which featured slide-to-unlock since its release in 2004 or 3 B.i. in Apple terms, stating that the feature was an "obvious" development in light of the Swedish handset and, that the slider itself had already been employed by Microsoft in Windows CE.
A great victory for common sense, though, alas, being a product outside of the US, the Neonode N1 holds little clout in a US patent case and, is evidence unlikely to be presented; though, hopefully, the London-based case itself may be something Google and Samsung can use in the US to help fight Apple's preliminary injunction against the Nexus smartphone.
