Patent Office Wakes Up to Find Apple’s ‘Steve Jobs’ Patent is Completely Invalid

Apple’s vaunted “Steve Jobs” patent – that has been used in most of its litigations against other companies  –  claiming patent of a “touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics,” has been ultimately held invalid on all 20 claims in a preliminary reexamination by the United States Patent Office.

Though the patent may survive in an amended form, it seems, the opinion of Florian Mueller of the FOSS PATENTS blog may at last find vindication.

Mueller, an award-winning patent lawyer, first reported the news on his blog, and he holds that the key multitouch patent of Apple, the ‘949 patent,  “seeks to monopolize the right to solve a problem as opposed to a specific solution.”

Mueller notes that challenges against the ‘949 patent owned by Apple had been ignored by the USPTO, almost like an established tradition. In 2010 a re-examination request of the patent was denied by the USPTO.

New requests for re-examination ultimately woke up the USPTO, to make a preliminary finding, that the patent is deemed invalid in its entirety, completely rejecting all claims to the “Steve Jobs Patent.”