Apple Wins Hollow Touch Screen Patent Victory Over Samsung - Forbes

Move up http://i.forbesimg.com t Move down

Best Buy's Latest No Good, Very Bad News Diminishes Odds Of A Buyout Or Turnaround Abram Brown Forbes Staff

Google Supplants Apple As My Number One White Noise Property Martin Sosnoff Contributor

ADP Will Revamp Jobs Report Amid Questions About Data's Accuracy Abram Brown Forbes Staff

Stock Market Haunted By Crash Of 1987 As Google And Apple Hit The Skids John Dobosz Forbes Staff

SAN JOSE, CA

Administrative Law Judge Thomas B. Pender, of the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) has found that Steve Jobs’ invention covered by patent number 7,479,949 was violated by Samsung.  Here is the abstract of the patent:

A computer-implemented method for use in conjunction with a computing device with a touch screen display comprises: detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display, applying one or more heuristics to the one or more finger contacts to determine a command for the device, and processing the command. The one or more heuristics comprise: a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command, a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a two-dimensional screen translation command, and a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a command to transition from displaying a respective item in a set of items to displaying a next item in the set of items.

The judge also ruled that Samsung violated three additional Apple (AAPL) patents, namely patent number  D618,678, patent number  RE41,922, and patent number  7,912,501. The judge found that Samsung has violated section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 by importing certain devices into the United States that violate the above mentioned patents.

The victory by Apple is only partial and hollow.  The judge ruled that patent number D558,757 and patent number 7,789,697 were not violated.  More importantly the judge found that Galaxy S II does not infringe the claim of the D’678 patent.  The victory is hollow as Samsung has submitted designs to the judge to address the patent dispute.  Moreover, there is no infringement against Samsung flagship phone Galaxy S III.

Apple is seeking to ban U.S. imports of Galaxy Tab, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note.  It appears that Samsung has work arounds or replacement products in place so that even if Apple eventually wins a ban, the ban is not going to have a material financial impact on Samsung.

In the end, the ITC may pay attention to U.S. Appeals Court ruling in favor of Samsung which stated that an injunction is proper only if the patented invention drives sales and is not proper if the patent represents a single feature of a multi featured device.  Judge Pender’s finding will be reviewed by the full commission by February 25, 2013.

About Me: I am an engineer and nuclear physicist by background. I founded two Inc. 500 companies, and have been involved in over 50 entrepreneurial ventures. I am the chief investment officer at The Arora Report, which publishes four newsletters to help investors profit from change. Write me: Nigam@TheAroraReport.com.  Follow me here and get email notification when I publish a new article.

Full disclosure: Subscribers to The Arora Report are long Apple from $131 and have taken partial profits at $360, $525, $629 and $568.

Steve Jobs' Most Important Products