Post 20: Apple tree falls the crowd push?

On Thursday of this week, Apple’s slide-to-unlock patent was invalidated in Germany. Germany’s Federal Patent Court, Bundespatentgericht, ruled that all claims of EP1964022 on “unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image” are invalid as granted, and additionally held that none of the 14 amendments proposed by Apple could salvage the patent.

This is not the only bad news Apple got. Earlier this week, USPTO gave Apple a hard blow: they did a final judgment on Apple’s “rubber band” feature patent is valid. Although Apple strongly respond that the patent does not run to “death”, the decision from USPTO will have a huge negative impact to Apple since the rejection is to a key patent claim, which has the potential to alter proceedings in Apple vs. Samsung case. Apple accused of more than 20 types of Samsung smartphone and two tablet computers infringe this patent technology.

Apple have done poorly in the recent patent cases, and lost cases in Germany, U.K and Netherland. We all know that Apple is a company that takes a good use of patents to protect themselves and attack rival companies. It seems like no one can stop the pace of Apple patents. They even applied a patent for “rounded rectangle”, which can combat a wide surface of patens. I cannot deny that Apple’s patent war forces more and more mobile phone manufactures to reexamine the importance of patents. They realize that patent is useful, and sometimes, it can even be used as weapons to fight back rivals. Needless to say, Apple gave a bas example in this regard. Apple should be aware that the best way to beat the competition is to develop consumers’ favorite products. Fighting competitor through lawsuit is just part of the game. I think if Apple can’t continue its succeed in iPhone and iPad, then the patent litigation won’t help too much, and Apple will face a daunting challenge. As Steve Job said” “Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” Can Apple rise again after losing Jobs? We’ll see.