The issue of patents is something that has always caught my attention, since any person or company can register a patent, even if it is a prototype, on anything, and if someone subsequently uses it, they can sue them.
This is what would have happened to Samsung who, after Apple presented the first iPhone model with the slide-to-unlock gesturethey copied them, being sued by the apple company, who would end up winning the battle.
Apple’s simplest patent
And, really, when we think about a patent, something more important comes to mind, like a flexible screen, or a battery for a week, not a simple unlock gesturesince by that rule of three, we would have thousands of patents on a simple phone, and it is something that Samsung must have thought, with some reason, since they did not see it as a real patent, and they thought that by changing the shape a little to unlock, it would do the trick.
It was in 2017 when the United States Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Samsung, following a lawsuit from Apple, forcing it to pay close to 120 million dollars for copying This and other features of the iPhone, which is why, 6 years after the patent was registered, Apple was able to collect a fine imposed on its biggest rival for “copying.”
However, there are other cases, such as Motorola 2 years earlier, that did not end the same, and that is why Samsung thought it would also get away with it. In Germany, Apple sued Motorola for using a similar unlocking system. However, in 2015, the German Supreme Court declared Apple’s patent invalid, arguing that the gesture did not represent sufficient inventive activity to be patentable.
And, from that moment, at least in Europe, Apple did not have much to do, and it seems normal to us, since, as we said, not everything can count as a patent, and there are things that are quite simple and absurd, and that is possibly They weren’t even the first device to have something similar, it’s just that they were the ones who registered it.
There are other absurd patents such as recycled paper bags. The company also filed a patent for white paper bags made from recycled materialfocusing on the resistance and sustainability of the material used, something that, like the previous point, was not something invented by them, however, they have the power and the money to be able to register it as such.
And you, what do you think of this type of patents? Do you think they should be more strict when it comes to accepting something as “own invention”, or do you think that everyone is free to register what they want if no one has done it before? ? For my part I have mixed feelings, since I understand Apple, but it is as if we registered a flying car, it does not exist (or at least commercially), but it may end up existing, however, I have not been the first to manufacture it, and The patent would be mine.
