The USPTO has issued a ruling on an Apple patent related to predictive text input declaring the patent invalid. The decision on US Patent No 8,074,172 centered on claim 18 of the patent which was defeated on the basis of prior art. The patent in question was one of two that a jury recently determined had been infringed upon by Samsung in a lawsuit brought by Apple.
In that trial, Apple was initially awarded approximately $119 Million in damages. At the time, despite the jury's ruling, many saw Samsung as a winner in the lawsuit as damages were a small fraction of the $2 Billion Apple had asked for, an apparent nod to Samsung's argument that smartphones contain too many patents to justify any single one commanding a large damages amount.
This new decision by the USPTO, which Samsung has notified the court about via a new filing, seems likely to result in damages being decreased even more. Apple had originally claimed infringement on five patents. With this latest change, a patent on a mechanism that converts addresses and phone numbers to links is the sole remaining patent that Apple has apparently prevailed on.
This news comes only a few days after the two tech giants agreed to stop all current litigation outside the U.S.
source: SamMobile
