[NewsPoster]

The US Patent and Trademark Office has finished a re-examination of Apple's so-called "Steve Jobs patent" and upheld all 20 claims as patentable, reports note. The patent is 364 pages in length, and covers many of the core concepts of the iPhone. Last year it was challenged anonymously, however, and in December the USPTO issued a preliminary invalidation.

The re-examination certificate was quietly issued to Apple on September 4th. The decision should give Apple a more solid legal standing in lawsuits. It's not clear who made the anonymous challenge, but it's speculated to be Samsung and/or Google, both of whom have been the main targets of Apple legal attacks over Android. Jobs famously accused Android of being "stolen," and threatened to go to "thermonuclear war" over his beliefs.

[Sebastien]

Yeah, "stolen" - just like Apple stole the designs of Konfabulator.

[BLAZE_MkIV]

That would be true if Konfabulator was actualy an original idea and not something that existed since the first days of window based GUIs

[Sebastien]

I said "stole (copied) the design of" - not "the idea of". #learnToRead

[Flying Meat]

Of course there is the other perspective:
http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/dashboard_vs_konfabulator

I don't know if Apple had any communications with the Konfabulator developer regarding acquisition, or forwarning, but of course they weren't obliged to, as similar functionality existed even before Konfabulator, in one form or another in Apple's various OSs.

But the patent items at the center of the article are valid, and have to be defended. Unarguably, no smart phone had the functionality described in the patent previous to the iPhone, which Apple patented successfully. Then Google et al decided to handle those patented features as if they were standards essential or prior art or whatever justification they thought they could get away with...

[BLAZE_MkIV]

Originally Posted by Sebastien 

I said "stole (copied) the design of" - not "the idea of". #learnToRead

To bad you can't copy-write or patent a design huh? Oh wait they did that intentionally didn't they.

[Spheric Harlot]

Don't feed the troll.

[aristotles]

The main designer of Konfabulator worked at Apple on the Copland project see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_%28operating_system%29 which featured widgets and themes. Not only did he steal the widget idea from his former employer but also the ideas for a theme engine which was released as Kaleidoscope.

I would not be surprised if he had "borrowed" some of the code too.