The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office found Apple's patent, which is the center of the Apple-Samsung dispute, invalid in its initial ruling.
The patent tentatively termed invalid is the "rubber-banding" or "bounce" feature, a bouncing animation that's displayed when the user reaches the end of the page. The Office rejected all of the 20 claims made by Apple. The patent also includes touch-screen action like dragging documents.
Germany-based Florian Müeller, a patent analyst and blogger, reported this event first. The decision was taken under new procedure to re-examine previously granted patents.
Apple has a chance to appeal against the verdict. This ruling by the Patent Office is non-final, as it can be overturned.
Samsung has worked around this patent.
:It was only due to sanctions for litigation misconduct that the jury wasn't informed of those workarounds, making Samsung liable for damages even with respect to many months in which it actually wasn't infringing anymore," Mueller said in his blog.
Companies like HTC, Motorola and Samsung, which run on Google's Android OS, will benefit from the ruling.
"There can be more than one non-final Office action by the Central Reexamination Division," said Mueller about the procedure of the Patent Office. "Even a 'final Office action' is not final at all. It can be reconsidered by the Central Reexamination Division itself, and the last decision by that division can be appealed to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which used to be called the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) until recently and is like an USPTO-internal appeals court. Remands by the PTAB to the Central Reexamination Division cause further delay. When the USPTO is done with the patent, its decision can be appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit."
At a jury ruling this August, Apple was awarded more than $1 billion against Samsung.
Samsung has appealed the decision. Both technology giants are battling each other in various courts around the world, accusing each other of patent infringement. Apple has not commented on the U.S. Patent office ruling.
