Samsung still hoping to use contested ‘pinch to zoom’ feature versus Apple

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Samsung is challenging a court decision that awarded Apple a billion dollars in damages for patent infringement.

This time Samsung’s complaint is that the “pinch to zoom” patent, which figured in some of the infringement claims, was actually invalidated by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

We noted that the patent office invalidated the pinch-to-zoom patent way back in December, 2012. But the USPTO’s decision apparently took a long time to wend its way through Samsung’s legal department, or perhaps the wheels of justice were simply very slow to turn.

According to Macworld, which noticed Samsung’s most recent court filing this week, the court (in August, 2012) found that 21 out of 24 Samsung devices violated claim 8 of Patent #7,844,915, aka the “915 Patent.” But now that claim 8 of the 915 patent is invalid — according to the USPTO decision — the court ruling may be invalid as well. Or so Samsung is arguing.

Apple has two months to respond to Samsung’s claims, Macworld notes. The wheels of justice continue to grind slowly.