Swedish phone helps HTC win Apple court battle

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By Nicole Kobie

Posted on 5 Jul 2012 at 09:56

A High Court judge has ruled that HTC doesn't violate a quartet of Apple patents.

The patents centred on a "slide to unlock" feature, multilingual keyboards, multitouch systems, and images "bouncing" back into place to show they can't be dragged any further. The last patent didn't apply to HTC devices, the court said, and the first three were ruled invalid.

Indeed, HTC successfully argued against the first patent - "unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image" - by citing prior art, digging out a Swedish handset from 2004 that used a similar slide-to-unlock system. The touchscreen Neonode N1 locked when not in use, displaying a message directing the user to "right sweep to unlock".

"Apple contend that the contribution is more than this," the ruling said. "It submits that, compared to Neonode, it is not simply a matter of giving the user more information about how to unlock the device, but it provides a better, more secure device."

While the court admitted that the iPhone had improvements over the Swedish handset's unlocking implementation, they were ruled "obvious". That ruling was good news for HTC, as Justice Floyd suggested HTC's unlock system was likely to infringe Apple's patent, if it had been found valid.

"HTC is pleased with the ruling, which provides further confirmation that Apple's claims against HTC are without merit," HTC said in a statement. "We remain disappointed that Apple continues to favour competition in the courtroom over competition in the marketplace."

"We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours," Apple said in a statement.

No wider implications?

A lawyer told the BBC that the ruling would be unlikely to affect the dozens of other cases happening in Europe and the US regarding Apple's iOS and Google's Android mobile OS.

"National patent laws thematically are very similar, but can be applied very differently," Andrew Alton at Urquhart-Dykes said. "Not only are the tests different but also the evidence that can be introduced in different courts varies. If the Neonode wasn't released in the US it might not be able to be cited there... So the fact that Apple has lost this particular patent battle in the UK shouldn't mean it should be seen to have lost the global war."