The United States Patent and Trademark Office has preliminarily rejected all 20 claims of Patent No. 7,844,915, or Apple’s so-called “pinch-to-zoom” patent
Patent ‘915 deals with technology that discerns whether a user is scrolling with a single finger or accessing several touch points at once, as in a pinch-to-zoom action. Apple successfully used Patent No. ‘915 against Samsung in its court battle earlier this year, and 21 of 24 Samsung devices in the lawsuit were found to be infringing on the patent.
The patent covers the ability of a programming interface to determine whether one finger initiates scrolling, or a differing number of fingers will perform a different action.
Samsung brought the invalidation of the key patent to the attention of the court in a Wednesday afternoon filing. All but 2 devices were found to infringe it, and Samsung hopes that bringing this to light will improve the probability of a re-trial.
Samsung has been battling for a retrial after Apple was granted more than $1 billion in damages when a jury decided that Samsung had willfully infringed on Apple’s patents. Part of Patent No. ‘915 was an important factor in payment calculations.
The rejection of the patent is however, preliminary, and isn’t yet the same as invalidating the patent. Apple will have the opportunity to file its counter-arguments.
The USPTO decision comes just two weeks after it preliminarily rejected Patent No. 7,479,949, also known as the “Steve Jobs” patent.
