Samsung Electronics is seeking to invalidate several Apple patents in Australia, taking the Australian Commissioner of Patents to court, ITNews reported on Friday, June 8. According to documents spotted by ITNews, Samsung filed its case against the Commissioner in late May, seeking to invalidate four patents awarded to Apple between 2009 and 2010.
According to Samsung, those four patents were granted "ultra vires," meaning beyond the powers held by the Australian Commissioner of Patents. In its application, Samsung alleged it is "aggrieved by the patents," because a case Apple filed in 2011 against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 was based on a set of patents that included those four.
Double Patents
The South Korean company further claims that all four patents were of inventions for which U.S. company Apple had already been granted innovation patents between 2005 and 2008, therefore it should not have been eligible to be granted the second patents by the Australian commissioner. Innovation patents are quicker to apply for, so companies often apply for such patents while they are waiting for standard patents to be granted. A company cannot, however, hold both patents at the same time.
Samsung is seeking to invalidate Australian Patent Application No. 2009200366: "list scrolling and document translation, scaling and rotation on a touch screen display;" Australian Patent Application No. 2008201540: "list scrolling and document translation, scaling and rotation on a touch-screen display;" Australian Patent Application No. 2006330724: 'unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image;" and Australian Patent Application No. 2007283771: "portable electronic device for photo management."
The first directions hearing for the case is scheduled for June 25 before Justice Annabelle Bennett, who has presided over much of the patent battle between Apple and Samsung in Australia. Bennett initially ordered a block on the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia, but the full court later overturned the order.
Commissioner's Mistake
"It's not [what] Apple was doing wrong, it's just that the patent office didn't notice what had happened," Watermark senior associate and patent blogger Mark Summerfield told ZDNet Australia. "Apple probably felt it was okay for them to do that, because the commissioner didn't raise it with them."
Considering that Apple let its innovation patents expire, if Samsung is successful in its invalidation quest Apple would lose the patents on those four inventions. "That would be a very harsh outcome for Apple, [but] on the other hand, this is a fairly common strategy these days," Summerfield told ZDNet, adding that Bennett will have to ponder whether the commissioner's mistake should deprive Apple of its rights.
The full hearing for Apple's case against Samsung is scheduled to run between July 23 and October 12, 2012. Summerfield, however, said the case Samsung filed against the Australian Commissioner of Patents will be purely administrative, and should be over by the time the other case is heard.
"It would be sensible to resolve this issue first," he told ZDNet Australia. "There's actually no point in [going through the full case] if the patents are null and void. It shouldn't require more than a day or two of hearings."
