Tuesday Apple Rumors: Apple Multi-Touch Patent Ruled Invalid

by Christopher Freeburn | December 11, 2012 1:49 pm

[1]Here are your Apple rumors[2] and AAPL news items for today:

Legal Upset: The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a preliminary ruling[3] that invalidates a critical Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL[4]) patent, Forbes notes. The patent in question covers the multi-touch interface used on the company’s popular iPhones and iPads and is known as the “Steve Jobs multi-touch patent.” Loss of the patent could undermine Apple’s patent litigation against rival device manufacturers, including Samsung. In fact, the request that led to a review of the patent came from a New York law firm that has previously worked with both Apple and Samsung. It is not known if Samsung was behind the motion. Apple has two months to appeal the preliminary decision and will almost certainly do so.

Quick Fix: Just 24 hours after police in an Australian city warned drivers not to use Apple’s new maps app to find their city, Apple has corrected the cartographic mistake that led motorists astray[5], Ars Technica notes. Police in Mildura, a city in Australia’s south-eastern region, posted a warning on their website yesterday urging drivers not to use Apple’s maps app after a number of motorists became stranded while trying to find the city[6]. It turned out the maps app placed the city inside a national park, 43 miles away from its actual location. Several stranded motorists had to be rescued from the area’s notorious heat. Apple dumped Google‘s (NASDAQ:GOOG[7]) maps app from the back-end of iOS earlier this year over the Internet search giant’s refusal to bring voice navigation to iOS. But the app was quickly criticized for errors and glitches, resulting in a rare apology from CEO Tim Cook.

App Impasse: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT[8]) has balked at paying Apple a 30% cut of fees paid by iOS users of its SkyDrive service for more storage space[9], TheNextWeb notes. The iOS SkyDrive app has been available for some time. However, when Microsoft updated the app to permit users to make in-app purchases of additional storage space, it ran afoul of the App Store requirement that Apple get a cut of all subscription purchases. Microsoft refused to pay Apple, which froze updates to the app. Microsoft argues that it would have to continue to pay the 30% fee for users who added storage space to their SkyDrive account through the iOS app, even if those users later move to non-Apple devices. Negotiations between the two companies have failed to produce a resolution. Developers who are creating third party apps that work with SkyDrive are now seeing their apps rejected by Apple’s App Store.

For more about the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors[10] stories.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2012/12/tuesday-apple-rumors-apple-multi-touch-patent-ruled-invalid/

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