Good to see some sense prevailing with all the generic, obvious patents Apple continuously applies for:

A key patent that Apple successfully used against Samsung in its multibillion-dollar courtroom brawl earlier this year is at risk following a re-examination by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
All 21 claims of U.S. patent No. 7,844,915 -- also known as the "pinch to zoom" patent -- were rejected by the Patent Office today, following a re-examination.

The decision comes weeks after the Patent Office tentatively invalidated another Apple software patent covering the rubber-banding effect found on iOS. Like the pinch-to-zoom patent, it too was used successfully against Samsung as part of the same lawsuit. Unrelated, but more recent, was another Apple patent covering touch-screen technology, which was deemed invalid by the Patent Office.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57560112-37/key-apple-patent-used-against-samsung-under-fire/

It makes me wonder why these patents aren't properly screened before they are granted instead of after they're used in litigation and someone actively points out their invalidity.

Hopefully this kind of thing starts happening a lot more, especially to patent trolls like Uniloc, the company that sued the Minecraft and X-Plane developers for the stupidly obvious patent to “require communication with a server to perform a license check to prevent the unauthorized use of said application.”

Well, if you have an answer, by all means share it!

That is a great article that certainly explains some things, but really only recent activity, it's not like terrible patents being approved is something that's only happened in the last couple of years (sad to see that it's getting worse instead of better though).

It seems like a major problem is that the Patent Office rarely understands the subject matter it's granting patents on.

It's a fucked up system they have going at the moment. I'm not sure how the patent office with a limited number of patent lawyers can be experts in every single field. They should probably learn from the science publishing industry and take on board some of their ways. i.e experts within the field are asked for their opinion and then the editor makes the decision to publish or not. except pay the reviewers.

You kind of live on a perpetual motion machine!

It seems like a major problem is that the Patent Office rarely understands the subject matter it's granting patents on.

do you think?