As Samsung continues to defend itself in its legal battle with Apple, it continues to find reasons why Apple may not have such legitimate patents after all. Expert witness Dr. Andries van Dam, a faculty member at Brown University highlighted several reasons why Apple’s ’381 bounce-back patent is invalid. As seen on a certain Tablecloth application, the software allows a user to scroll through a certain image and then displays a blank white space when the user reaches the end. When that happens, a finger is removed which causes the image to snap-back— just like Apple’s feature. In addition, Tablecloth dates back to 2005, while Apple’s bounce-back patent was originally filed in December of 2007.
Dr. van Dam didn’t stop their either. He went on to demonstrate the LaunchTile user interface and highlights it didn’t appear to be similar to the ’381 patent because when a user reaches the end of the on-screen content there is no off-screen information revealed. On the other hand, van Dam argues the software does meet the requirements when swiping within the main content field itself, the next next tile serving as the “off-screen content” in this case. He adds the US Patent Office had never seen the two pieces of software before granting Apple its patent.
Apple responded to Dr. van Dam’s argument by stressing Tablecloth returns the user to the original starting point upon a bounce-back, rather than the edge of the content. Naturally that quickly became invalid when Dr. van Dam finished his point by adding:
“The patent does not tell you how you implement a touchscreen display. In every way that is a touchscreen display.”
Your move, Apple?