Recently Apple defeated Motorola Mobility in a Munich court in a dispute over Apple's European patent for the "slide to unlock" feature on mobile phones and other computer devices.
There is an American patent, granted February 2010 for Unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image, but the dispute was for the rights in European Patent 1964022 , granted rights in March 2010. Below is the main drawing.
The BBC has a news story about it. It is the first time Apple has defeated Motorola in any of its disputes.
While the ruling only affects German rights (European patents become bundles of national patents after an opposition period which follows grant), it could provide ammunition for Apple taking Android phone makers to court for providing similar features on their phones.
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