[Ry]

Apple's bounce-back patent rejected by the Patent Office, but Samsung hasn't won yet

The internet was abuzz yesterday with reports that Apple's infamous "bounce-back" patent, US 7,469,381, was "tentatively invalidated" by the US Patent Office. That's one of the patents Samsung was found to infringe, and any action by the USPTO will have major consequences. Unfortunately, all those reports were extremely premature patents can't be "tentatively invalid," just like people can't be "tentatively dead."

What actually happened was that the USPTO just recently issued its first substantive rejection of the '381 patent's claims after granting Samsung's request to review its validity back in July. It's a rejection, not an invalidation. It sounds like a legal word game, and it is but these definitions are critically important. Patents are either valid or invalid, and patents under reexamination are under the microscope, but most certainly alive.