The thermonuclear war between Samsung and Apple is being won by the South Korean outfit in the EU even while it loses in the US.
Samsung's hold on the European justice system seems remarkably strong after winning a key case in Holland yesterday.
A Dutch Court has confirmed that Samsung Electronics does not
infringe an Apple patent by using certain multi-touch techniques on some
of the Samsung Galaxy smartphones and tablet computers.
The Apple friendly press has tried to claim that Cupertino has won
the patent war after an extremely dubious victory in the US, where the
phone maker was awarded $1.05 billion in damages.
However, that case is likely to be appealed on the basis that the
jury foreman, who had reason to hate a Samsung supplier for suing him
under patent law, admitted that he had ignored most of the law and swung
the jury to see his way of thinking.
But Apple's US hold was strengthened after an ITC judge confirmed
that Samsung infringed Apple patents in making its Captivate, Transform
and Fascinate smartphones, as well as the Galaxy tablet.
Judge Thomas Pender said that Samsung infringed four Apple patents
but did not violate two others listed in the complaint. There had been
seven listed initially, but one was dropped during litigation.
The International Trade Commission will decide in February whether to uphold or reject the judge's decision.
Pender said that Samsung infringed an Apple patent that helps the
touchscreen interpret if a user wants to scroll up and down or switch
between applications. It was also found to have infringed a patent that
allows the device to show an image on a screen with a second,
translucent image over it.
But things have not been going so well in the EU. Apple argued in
September in the Hague court that Samsung infringed its patent on
multi-touch functions, which lets users use two fingers at one time on a
touch screen. Apple has taken Samsung to task over the "pinch to zoom"
function popular on smartphones and tablets.
Not only did it lose a preliminary injunction on this patent in the
Dutch courts last year it also lost its battle in the courts in Britain
against HTC, and in Germany against Samsung and Motorola Mobility, which is owned by Google.
The Dutch court said its multi-touch patent ruling was similar to those in Britain and Germany.
While this is a mess, it does not seem to actually mean anything.
Samsung can, and has, simply released new hardware in the US which does
not break Apple's patents. So far not a single top of the range
smartphone or tablet has been taken off the shelves in a way which would
commercially give any ground to either side. Products which are banned
are usually long gone after the appeals process is exhausted.
In other words the only side that is really winning in this battle are the lawyers.
Thursday, 25 October 2012
Sunday, 7 October 2012
IP Office of Singapore Provides Free Patent, Trademark, and Design Searching through eSearch
The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) has had a busy year: last October the Surf-IP search system was shut down, and IPOS recently streamlined the layout of its website
to make it much more intuitive and user-friendly. The IPOS website
still provides access to online IP search services through the eSearch
system, which allows users to search through patent, trademark, and
design applications filed with IPOS. The eSearch services don’t provide
the same breadth of patent coverage
that Surf-IP previously provided, since the eSearch platform only
covers patent applications or patents published in Singapore. Surf-IP
searched the patent data from a number of authorities, including US, EP,
WO, JP, CN, CA, TH, GB, KR, and TW patent data (in addition to SG
patent documents). The eSearch platform covers a broader variety of
intellectual property types than Surf-IP, since eSearch provides
trademark and design search options, while Surf-IP only covered patent
data. Now that Surf-IP is no longer available, the eSearch services on
the IPOS website provide a useful free avenue for searching SG patent
data (as well as trademark and design data).
Read on to learn how to access and use the eSearch services from the IPOS website!
Accessing the eSearch Services
From the IPOS website homepage, the eSearch portal can be accessed through two paths. From the top drop-down menu, select the “Services” option. From the Services menu, choose “Filing and Registration,” and from that submenu, select “Getting Started with eServices.” Finally, from the submenu that appears beside “Getting Started with eServices, ” choose the eSearch option to go to the portal page. The path through the main menu and submenus would therefore be Services>Filing and Registration>Getting Started with eServices>eSearch.
A much quicker option is simply selecting the eServices link under the Quick Links section in the bottom right corner of the homepage. On the “Getting Started with eServices” page, choose the eSearch link from the Services sidemenu. The eSearch portal page provides links to the three eSearch tools: ePatents Search, eTrademarks Search, and eDesigns Search. It should be noted that these search tools are best viewed using Internet Explorer 6.0.
ePatents Search
The ePatent Search provides access to any patent application or patent that has been published in Singapore (where available). According to the IPOS website, specifications, bibliographic and register information are available for SG patent documents from 1937 onwards. Access of information and downloads of patent registers and specifications are available free-of-charge. Search forms include:
From all three search forms, users may also choose the number of
results per page (5 or 10), as well as which fields to display in the
results (filing date, inventor, applicant, and IPC
fields are optional). From the simple and advanced forms, users can
also choose sort order for the results (oldest first or last), and
specification results appear to be ranked by relevancy. From
specification search result sets, users can also refine a search by
adding additional query terms connected to the original query by a
chosen Boolean operator. Search results can be paged through 5 or 10
records at a time, but the user cannot choose to jump to a specific
record number or page of results. Results display the publication
number, title, and application number, plus any optional selected
fields. Each result in the hit list also includes links to the basic
full record (bibliographic data), register information, specification,
and abstract. If one of these full record views isn’t available, no
link is displayed above the result in the hit list. The specifications
are downloaded in TIFF format, according to the help information.
eTrademarks Search
Conduct a similar mark search, online trademark search, or search through the Classification of Goods and Services. The Similar Marks Search allows users to enter text search terms (in Latin characters or Chinese), enter a class from the Nice Classification (mandatory field), select a trademark category, and choose to display mark images only or both mark images and details in the results. From the Online Trade Marks search form, user must select a trademark type from a drop-down menu and enter any additional information (trademark number, date range, Nice Class, and individual or company name). Finally, users may choose to search through the Nice Classification of Goods and Services (by either selecting a class number or entering a text query).
The result set displays search criteria at the top of the page, and users can select to skip to various pages of results. Only the first 1,200 records are displayed. Users may also select individual results to print (mark image only, basic details, or full details). Select a mark from the result list to view all available details for the mark.
eDesigns Search
Search through a fielded search form by criteria like design number, applicant name, filing date, class or subclass code (Locarno), article, or UK Design number. The result set displays 25 results per page, and a thumbnail image and design number is shown for each record. Only the first 1,200 records are displayed. Select a thumbnail to view the full design record image, or select the record number to view all details for the design. It’s unusual that the design details and design image are displayed on separate pages.
Conclusion
From the copyright dates displayed at the bottom of the eSearch forms, it appears that these search services have been available since 2007 (for patent search) and 2008 (for design and trademark search). The eSearch services were most likely available while Surf-IP was also accessible on the IPOS website, so it seems that IPOS has streamlined its available search services by discontinuing Surf-IP and maintaining the central eSearch platforms that only access SG patents, trademarks, and designs. When Surf-IP was first discontinued, the announcement noted that “other free IP search portals have been launched,” so it seems that IPOS felt that other free global IP portals (like Espacenet) provided adequate search resources that made Surf-IP redundant. The streamlined IPOS website, shutdown of Surf-IP, and the continued maintenance of eSearch are all excellent examples of the flexibility and forward-thinking nature of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, which has chosen to focus time and money on maintaining and improving core information resources (while weeding out redundant resources).
Read on to learn how to access and use the eSearch services from the IPOS website!
Accessing the eSearch Services
From the IPOS website homepage, the eSearch portal can be accessed through two paths. From the top drop-down menu, select the “Services” option. From the Services menu, choose “Filing and Registration,” and from that submenu, select “Getting Started with eServices.” Finally, from the submenu that appears beside “Getting Started with eServices, ” choose the eSearch option to go to the portal page. The path through the main menu and submenus would therefore be Services>Filing and Registration>Getting Started with eServices>eSearch.
A much quicker option is simply selecting the eServices link under the Quick Links section in the bottom right corner of the homepage. On the “Getting Started with eServices” page, choose the eSearch link from the Services sidemenu. The eSearch portal page provides links to the three eSearch tools: ePatents Search, eTrademarks Search, and eDesigns Search. It should be noted that these search tools are best viewed using Internet Explorer 6.0.
ePatents Search
The ePatent Search provides access to any patent application or patent that has been published in Singapore (where available). According to the IPOS website, specifications, bibliographic and register information are available for SG patent documents from 1937 onwards. Access of information and downloads of patent registers and specifications are available free-of-charge. Search forms include:
- Simple form – This fielded search form allows users to search by name, application or patent number, a keyword search within the title or abstract fields, or receipt number.
- Advanced form – In this fielded search form, select the field criteria, enter the query (or date range, in the first field), and choose the connecting Boolean operator between query terms (AND/OR/NOT). The search form notes that patent abstract data is only “available only for direct national filing cases and PCT cases up to 1995.”
- Specification form – Enter a keyword query to search in the specification of SG patent documents, and select a date range.
The Advanced patent search form.
Patent search results.
Conduct a similar mark search, online trademark search, or search through the Classification of Goods and Services. The Similar Marks Search allows users to enter text search terms (in Latin characters or Chinese), enter a class from the Nice Classification (mandatory field), select a trademark category, and choose to display mark images only or both mark images and details in the results. From the Online Trade Marks search form, user must select a trademark type from a drop-down menu and enter any additional information (trademark number, date range, Nice Class, and individual or company name). Finally, users may choose to search through the Nice Classification of Goods and Services (by either selecting a class number or entering a text query).
The result set displays search criteria at the top of the page, and users can select to skip to various pages of results. Only the first 1,200 records are displayed. Users may also select individual results to print (mark image only, basic details, or full details). Select a mark from the result list to view all available details for the mark.
Trademark search results.
Search through a fielded search form by criteria like design number, applicant name, filing date, class or subclass code (Locarno), article, or UK Design number. The result set displays 25 results per page, and a thumbnail image and design number is shown for each record. Only the first 1,200 records are displayed. Select a thumbnail to view the full design record image, or select the record number to view all details for the design. It’s unusual that the design details and design image are displayed on separate pages.
Design search results.
From the copyright dates displayed at the bottom of the eSearch forms, it appears that these search services have been available since 2007 (for patent search) and 2008 (for design and trademark search). The eSearch services were most likely available while Surf-IP was also accessible on the IPOS website, so it seems that IPOS has streamlined its available search services by discontinuing Surf-IP and maintaining the central eSearch platforms that only access SG patents, trademarks, and designs. When Surf-IP was first discontinued, the announcement noted that “other free IP search portals have been launched,” so it seems that IPOS felt that other free global IP portals (like Espacenet) provided adequate search resources that made Surf-IP redundant. The streamlined IPOS website, shutdown of Surf-IP, and the continued maintenance of eSearch are all excellent examples of the flexibility and forward-thinking nature of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, which has chosen to focus time and money on maintaining and improving core information resources (while weeding out redundant resources).
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