Apple's second high-profile patent win against Samsung was appealed, just as the first was. And in an opinion (PDF) published today, a panel of appeals judges entirely wiped out Apple's victory and its $120 million verdict.
The new decision found that out of three different patents Apple became famous for winning with, one wasn't infringed and two of them are invalid.
The '647 patent described how to turn phone numbers and other software "structures" into links, allowing users to take actions like calling a number with one "click" rather than copying and pasting. The jury awarded Apple $98.7 million based on that patent, but the appeals judges today held that the patent wasn't infringed at all. They held that "Apple failed to prove, as a matter of law, that the accused Samsung products use an 'analyzer server' as we have previously construed that term."
Appeals judges also invalidated one of Apple's most consistently ridiculed patents, the '721 "slide to unlock" patent. Jurors awarded $3 million based on infringement of that patent, but the appeals panel said the patent is invalid because of prior art.
The appeals court was convinced by two pieces of prior art for "slide to unlock." First, there was the Neonode N1, a Microsoft-powered touchscreen phone that pre-dated Apple's iPhone by a few years. Samsung lawyers trotted out a "Quickstart Guide" for that phone, which instructed its users to "right sweep to unlock" the phone. However, the phone didn't have "a moving image associated with the gesture."
