Apple has regained its invalidated multi-touch patent, meaning the company is set to go to town on a bunch of rivals. The Apple touch patent could prove to be a bit of a sore point for a few companies in the months to come.
The late Steve Jobs announced the multi-touch tech along with the very first iPhone years ago. He made specific reference to the Apple touch patent in place at that event, forcing other companies to stay away from the feature. However last year the patent, numbered 7,479,949, was invalidated. Now it’s been recognised again.
The patent has been used before. Apple has found itself in legal cases with HTC, Palm and Samsung. The latter of these even has an import ban on older devices because of it. Basically this will force companies to start coming up with workarounds. It’s funny to think that such a huge patent belongs to one company, but it’s actually just one of a number of patents that Apple has regained recently.
Source: Phone Arena
