Apple has been granted a patent by the US Patents and Trademark Office USPTO which effectively grants the company unique rights to any electronic device that is rectangular with rounded corners.
Apple had attempted to use an earlier patent to argue the same thing in its recent Californian patent dispute with Samsung, but the claim was rejected. The new patent may provide Apple with more power in the event of any reconsideration of the verdict in its dispute with Samsung.
Patent D670,286 covers the “ornamental design” of the iPad, but due to the nature of the patent application and the broad nature of its wording it could effectively cover any “portable display device” that is rectangular and has rounded corners. That covers virtually all competing tablets and smartphones.
Could this be the end of the smartphone industry as we know it?
The patent only applies in the United States and many experts on the matter believe that the patent would not stand up in court, and would be revoked if Apple ever attempted to use it to sue a rival company. Numerous examples of prior art also exist, which leads many to believe that the US patent system is inherently flawed and broken.
The patent has been approved shortly after Apple lost another patent dispute against US firm VirnetX. VirnetX had sued Apple over a number of patents it claimed were infringed by Apple’s FaceTime video messaging app. Apple countered the claim by stating that it did not violate VirnetX’s patents, that it did not generate revenue from FaceTime, and that VirnetX did not have any products that used the patents anyway, but the court disagreed and Apple was ordered to pay VirnetX $368 million in damages.