Slide to Unlock Patent

Mark Gero
IEOR 190G
HW 4
February 4, 2015

Claim one of Apples "slide to unlock patent" basically lays out the idea of using a touchscreen device with an animated object or picture that denotes some sort of locking mechanism and then the use of continuous undifferentiated movement along said touch screen to a region denoting the unlocking of said device to unlock the device.

The basic idea behind Samsung and Apples dispute was that Samsung used a similar slide to unlock procedure on their smart phones and apple sued for damages. Samsung eventually lost the case, but while Apple wanted two billion dollars they got less that 200 million dollars in damages. The reason for the decreased pay out was that the judge ruled that "Accordingly, Apple has not met its burden to show clear and convincing evidence that Samsung acted despite an objectively high likelihood that its actions would infringe a valid patent." This basically means that Samsung didn't know they were infringing on a patent, so since it was not will full it is a smaller payoff.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2604328/intellectual-property/apples-slide-to-unlock-patent-not-willfully-infringed-by-samsung-judge-rules.html