Here's a paywall bypassing link to the article http://tinyurl.com/WSJ-Digione
Well then why would the competitors use swipe to unlock in their products? There are many other ways to unlock a phone. A button. Swirl your finger around in a circle to unlock. Type in a passcode.
The reason they used it is because Apple thought of something really obvious, but effective. A gesture that couldn't unlock a phone accidentally when in your pocket, but which is easy and intuitive to do when you do want to unlock it.
The competitors knew that was patented. They used it anyway, because they couldn't think of anything just as effective. They hadn't thought of it before, even in its most simplistic form. So yes, I very much agree with Apple suing over that. It's not like there wasn't a different way to do it.
You might see it as something simple and natural. It's easy to say that with hindsight. Even so much as a swipe unlock had a lot of thought and time that goes into it, especially when you consider what the phone industry looked like before 2007.
Apple's claim 1 on slide-to-unlock is as follows:Look up "neonode swipe to unlock". It existed before the iPhone. Apple shouldn't have gotten that patent just like this Chinese company shouldn't have gotten any patent for it's design. Karma, gotta love it.
Look up "neonode swipe to unlock". It existed before the iPhone. Apple shouldn't have gotten that patent just like this Chinese company shouldn't have gotten any patent for it's design. Karma, gotta love it.
There are no degrees of existance in law. Only in Apple's mind or when someone/thing puts a wobble in their day.
Shenzhen Baili, the Chinese company that claimed the iPhone 6 violated the patent of its 100c smartphone, is reported to "barely exist" following its victory in the Beijing Intellectual Property Office against Apple.
In response to Shenzhen Baili's patent lawsuit, The Wall Street Journal investigated the company, along with its parent Digione, and found that the latter company had collapsed, "brought down by buggy products, mismanagement and fierce competition, according to former employees and investors." Digione has apparently been absent from China's mobile phone market for nearly a year.
![]()
iPhone 6 (left) and Shenzhen Baili's 100c (right)
All the same, Shenzhen Baili is claiming to continue to battle Apple through its pending appeal process, and the company "is still operational in its necessary functions," according to Digione lawyer Andy Yang. The company originally filed the patent infringement claim in December 2014, shortly after the launch of the iPhone 6, but the case only recently reached the court system in Beijing.
Despite its assertion to continue going after Apple in court, the financial records of Baili and its parent company reveal that both are insolvent, with debts that greatly exceed their total assets. Former employees of the company even said that the suit against Apple was "always more a marketing ploy than a serious court case."
Despite the setback, Apple has confirmed that both the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have stayed on sale in China thanks to an administrative order appeal from a regional patent tribunal in Beijing last month.
Article Link: Company That Sued Apple for iPhone 6 Patent Infringement 'Barely Exists'
As ridiculous as this is its karma for Apple. Apple sued for petty things like swipe to unlock.
Yeah. I cannot agree more.Apple also destroyed a lot of small companies along the way by stealing their product ideas. "Sherlock", anyone?
More to the subject: In today's patent system, it doesn't matter AT ALL whether the company that owns the patent "barely exists" nor does it matter if that company even has a product that uses the patent in question. Patents are NOT about such things -- they're just some abstract description on paper about some idea, and not about the implementation of that idea. And whoever puts that on paper first, wins. After that, it's only a question of whether you have sufficient funds, decent lawyers and a judge who rules in your favor. And that already implies that the patent system does not protect an inventor who came up with an awesome idea in his garage at home - due to its highly costly nature, it only protects corporations. The patent system is screwed and should be abolished yesterday. And while we're at it: The copyright system is not far from that point either. It also does not protect the artists, writers and developers, it only protects the industrial chain around the real creators. (As a historical reference: The copyright system was invented to protect the PRINTERS of the books, not the AUTHORS of these books.) In its current form, the copyright system should go, too.
I remember the gasps in the audience when Jobs demoed it.
Apple's claim 1 on slide-to-unlock is as follows:
(snip)
Note the requirement for an "unlock image" that moves with the user's finger. Note that the Neonode device has no such image.
It's a small difference, but it is different. Is it different enough?
It passed initial review and was issued, but the courts are the final arbiter.
Shenzhen Baili, the Chinese company that claimed the iPhone 6 violated the patent of its 100c smartphone, is reported to "barely exist" following its victory in the Beijing Intellectual Property Office against Apple.
It's probably not mentioned because it's not really relevant. It is still different from the Apple patent. Samsung's defense rests on combining two different prior art exhibits and claiming that it was obvious to combine them-- one involves using the sliding gesture, the other, from another company, involves using a tracking image as feedback to the user.One thing I never see mentioned: NeoNode later noticed that new users didn't know about the slide to unlock, so they added little arrows along the path as a guide. That was 2005, I think.
Every country has its own IP laws, so judgements in one country don't necessarily translate to another, and different judgements don't necessarily indicate willful corruption or nationalism.Good question, and the answer is: No, not according to courts all over the world.
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They only kept it going in friendlier California.
It doesn't matter that Apple had to refine their patent a few times to get it through-- that's part of the process. If Apple was giving cash bribes to the examiner, that would matter, but "wearing them down" is kind of a weird way of describing a prescribed process that has a time limit. I agree the process isn't optimal, but you can't blame Apple for following the process. It is standard procedure to claim the world and then compromise down to a much narrower claim. At the end the examiner felt that, on balance, the claims stood and issued the patent.Btw, that particular '721 patent did not pass its initial USPTO reviews. Every claim was rejected three times before the examiner ran out of time and issued the patent anyway. (This happens more than it should, as a result of USPTO changes that made issuing patents easier and better for a career, than rejecting them. Examiners also figure a patent can always be challenged later if need be. Which is what happened here.)
It's probably not mentioned because it's not really relevant. It is still different from the Apple patent.
Samsung's defense rests on combining two different prior art exhibits and claiming that it was obvious to combine them-- one involves using the sliding gesture, the other, from another company, involves using a tracking image as feedback to the user.
That, in a nutshell, was my point. Googling "Neonode" doesn't teach you anything about the case.
Every time a patent case comes up, people who have no idea how the system works turn it into a gang war between rival fan clubs.
http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-orders/15-1171.Opinion.2-24-2016.1.PDF
(Touch to unlock is referred to as '721, and the ruling for that starts on page 15-- it's more interesting to read than many would imagine)
Falling back to defend yourself in only one country, which also happens to be the worlds biggest market, is not an indication that your case is weak, it's a financially sound decision.
It can also be seen in the judgement that this was not as cut and dried as many are trying to say it was (this wasn't a direct infringement on someone else's patent which would be straight forward, but an argument over whether a collection of prior art, taken as a whole, made Apple's patent obvious) and their argument was based on precedent in US law that may not translate to other courts.
In the end, my point isn't to try to litigate whether Apple's patent is valid or not, but to point out that this is much more nuanced than many people think it is and most of the arguments that are being raised are irrelevant or incomplete. If you get your information from blogs then you have little understanding of what the fight over "slide to unlock" is really about-- because it's not about sliding to unlock.
Only a company with deep pockets should deal with China. China is completely dishonest and fraudulent from it's business people through to it's government. Apple is big enough. The world should isolate and ignore China commercially, we would all be better off. treat them like they don't exist.
Actually, the specific design pieces (in red below) that the Beijing administrator looked at between the Apple and Chinese phones, especially for the side view, are more similar...
View attachment 637386
...than the same curves between the Apple and Samsung phones in the California trial:
View attachment 637385
So anyone who still actually believes the Samsung phone looked "exactly like" the Apple one, has little choice but to agree with Beijing that the Apple phone infringes the Chinese one. (In both cases, the decisions ignored all the camera / port / button / logo placements and other details that were different and that easily alerted a consumer.)
Maybe. Or it could be just a local official's favor done in an attempt to get some cash from Apple, since it was only done at the Beijing level, not national.
Wait. First you said it was obvious, then you claim it's not. In any case, you're massively incorrect
First off, Apple didn't invent the concept of swipe to prevent accidental unlocks. A horizontal swipe gesture had already been done in 2002 on a Windows CE phone exactly for that reason. What Apple patented, was using an image slid in a predefined range of motion.
However, that's the same visual action that a virtual on-off button takes, and that's why (along with the 2002 phone), other countries' courts quickly invalidated the Apple patent. Too much prior art.
Apple didn't invent swipe to unlock and didn't come up with the idea so should not hold a patent for it:
Note the date the video was uploaded, it is well known Neonode were first to market with swipe to unlock:
Perhaps because Apple didn't invent swipe unlock, inertial scrolling, multi-touch, pinch zoom, or most everything else which awed people who had never seen those things before.
Swipe to unlock was not dependent on capacitive touchscreens (which Apple did not invent, eiither). For example, the 2002 NeoNode did it using IR LEDs for its touchscreen. Heck, gesture unlocks had been used on resistive sceen PDAs and phones since the 1990s. There was even a pretty big market at one time built around them, with all sorts of clever methods and patterns.
The reason phones didn't use gestures any more by the time the iPhone came out, is because they had fallen out of favor as a secure unlock mechanism, after it was noticed that they often left telltale finger grease marks that could be followed.
Therefore business and many consumer users switched back to using passcodes for security.
Proving that life repeats itself, now the iPhone itself is dropping swipe to unlock in favor of a secure method.
But you originally argued Apple had no right to claim form as patent right for the iPhone and iPad, but now you're arguing this Chinese company does have a right to it?
So anyone who still actually believes the Samsung phone looked "exactly like" the Apple one, has little choice but to agree with Beijing that the Apple phone infringes the Chinese one. (In both cases, the decisions ignored all the camera / port / button / logo placements and other details that were different and that easily alerted a consumer.)
Beijing's claim about the iPhone 6 is that, despite differences such as camera and button shape and placement, a consumer would be fooled by the overall design similarities. Sound familiar?
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Do they still look exactly alike to you? If so, then congratulations! You're qualified both to serve on a California jury, and to work as an official Beijing Intellectual Property judge!
Who has ever claimed that Apple invented slide to unlock?
So according to you, any company that doesn't invent something has no right to patented it?
You see, inventing is one thing, patenting is another.
But you originally argued Apple had no right to claim form as patent right for the iPhone and iPad, but now you're arguing this Chinese company does have a right to it? Seriously, your hatred of Apple has affected your memory. You pick any side against Apple, argue for it, hoping nobody remembers your points against Apple. Well some people don't forget. Such Hypocrisy. If you argue a point, at least be consistent over the whole course. You've been exposed once more. Why does an Apple hater like you come to an Apple forum in the first place? Your attempts at FUD have been exposed. Time to let your issue go, the record is utterly broken.
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Who has ever claimed that Apple invented slide to unlock? They patented it. So according to you, any company that doesn't invent something has no right to patented it? So you're absolutely against every troll patent shelf company that drags Apple into court. I'll have to frame that comment of yours for future reference when you troll these boards cheering for patent trolls. I'll remind you. You're welcome.
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Would you care to provide any links where Apple ever, somewhere claimed it invented swipe to unlock, inertial scrolling, multi-touch, pinch zoom or most everything you keep harping about?
You see, inventing is one thing, patenting is another. So you've argued in the past in favour of patent trolls (and now this company mentioned in the storyline) holding patents for things they never invented, but you come here arguing that Apple is evil because they hold patents for things they didn't invent? I would call that gross hypocrisy. So now we know why you're here, perhaps you could show some courtesy and be a tad consistent with your sophism in future.
[doublepost=1466800840][/doublepost]Can you sue for having your head so far up your ass that you actually fail to see that your 100c phone actually infringes on Apples original iPhone 3G... If so Apple should counter sue.
Shenzhen Baili, the Chinese company that claimed the iPhone 6 violated the patent of its 100c smartphone, is reported to "barely exist" following its victory in the Beijing Intellectual Property Office against Apple.
In response to Shenzhen Baili's patent lawsuit, The Wall Street Journal investigated the company, along with its parent Digione, and found that the latter company had collapsed, "brought down by buggy products, mismanagement and fierce competition, according to former employees and investors." Digione has apparently been absent from China's mobile phone market for nearly a year.
![]()
iPhone 6 (left) and Shenzhen Baili's 100c (right)
All the same, Shenzhen Baili is claiming to continue to battle Apple through its pending appeal process, and the company "is still operational in its necessary functions," according to Digione lawyer Andy Yang. The company originally filed the patent infringement claim in December 2014, shortly after the launch of the iPhone 6, but the case only recently reached the court system in Beijing.
Despite its assertion to continue going after Apple in court, the financial records of Baili and its parent company reveal that both are insolvent, with debts that greatly exceed their total assets. Former employees of the company even said that the suit against Apple was "always more a marketing ploy than a serious court case."
Despite the setback, Apple has confirmed that both the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have stayed on sale in China thanks to an administrative order appeal from a regional patent tribunal in Beijing last month.
Article Link: Company That Sued Apple for iPhone 6 Patent Infringement 'Barely Exists'