Steve Jobs Video Kills Apple Patent In Germany 100
An anonymous reader writes "Today the Federal Patent Court of Germany shot down 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 (video). 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. 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."
Re:Europe (Score:5, Informative)
The law applies to *public* demonstrations. Not closed demonstrations covered by a solid wall of NDA's. And if you demonstrated it years ago in the US, there's no way a EU firm could hold the patent. You could still file it in the USA if noone did before you, but never in the EU. On the other hand, the guy in the audience that was a bit faster than you? Neither could he.
Don't discount the advantages because you dislike one particular disadvantage.
Re:Europe (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bouncing never should have been patentable (Score:5, Informative)
If Apple wants to patent a specific algorithm which generates a bouncing behavior, then they should be able to as long as it's a novel method and nobody's done it that way before. What they should not be able to do is get a patent which prohibits anyone else from implementing any bouncing, which is exactly what's happened. At that point, the fact that this behavior is a natural consequence of some simple mathematical laws and has been known about for centuries becomes prior art.
Re:Europe (Score:2, Informative)
Perhaps it's how the US claims it's still innovating, when the opposite is actually happening because of it.
Metrics, dear. "Innovation" is measured in patents per second and copyright filings per second. The more you have, the more "innovative" you are.
The fact that patents and copyright filings are a by-product of innovation rather than innovation in itself doesn't cross these dipshits minds because you can't easily measure real innovation.