Android Devices Officially Infringe 17 Apple And Microsoft Patents, Six In The Last Three Months

Last quarter, courts around the world had filed judgements that showed Android infringing 11 mostly Apple patents, with a couple of Microsoft patents thrown in for good measure. As of today, according to Florian Meuller of FOSS Patents, there are 17 patent judgements against the Android operating system, four in favor of Microsoft, and a staggering 13 favoring Apple.

These judicial decisions only include final judgements, and do not include those where a judgement was made, but the injunction lifted by another court or judge. They include both courts and the International Trade Commission, a body with quasi-judicial authority in world trade agreements.

The Apple patents with judgements against the Android operating system include those on “photo gallery page-flipping,” “rubber-banding/overscroll bounce,” “data tapping,” two “slide to unlock” patents, Siri-styled unified search, and iPhone and iPad related design patents.

The Microsoft patents found infringed include “generating meeting requests and group scheduling from a mobile device,” “communicating multi-part messages between cellular devices using a standardized interface” and “common name space for long and short filenames.”

The list of infringement judgements really brings home the fact that the Android operating system is put together with a lot of the parts and pieces of other companies’ patented innovations, though it may also be seen as a critique of the way patents on software are granted and enforced, as well.

• Source FOSS Patents

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