Apple has lost another major battle to Samsung as the US appeals court overturns the ban on Galaxy Nexus device. Only ten days ago Judge Koh lifted the ban from Galaxy Tab 10.1 as the misguided jury did not find the tablet to be infringing upon Apple's patents. The basis of this ban was 'unified' search which allowed users to search apps, files and the Internet from one box.

The Appeals court said in its order that "We hold that the district court abused its discretion in enjoining the sales of the Galaxy Nexus."

Florian Mueller, a blogged who is paid by Microsoft (and Oracle) who churns anti-Android blogs wrotem, "With the Federal Circuit having so much doubt about the merits of Apple's infringement theory, the '604 unified search patent actually becomes a candidate for dismissal from Apple's second California lawsuit against Samsung."

Apple Is Insulting The Terms Invention & Innovation
Apple has been engaged in legal battle with Android players as it realizes that it can't compete on the grounds of better products (iPhone 5 seems to be a major disaster). Apple is using stupid patents like rounded corners and many other which can be deemed invalid due to prior art to slow competition.

This is not what patents were about.

Apple and the current patent system has diluted, in fact insulted, the meaning of innovation and invention -- now rounded corners and slide to unlock are 'original' ideas which are patented to build empires upon.

I wonder what Chinese and Indians think of this stupid system when they look at their history where they 'invented' things like gun powder, printing press or zero. They never 'claimed' the ownership of such ideas and let the whole humanity build on top of it and grow as a society. On the contrary here in the west we have a system that allows incompetent people to claim the ownership of a tiny idea like rounded corner.

This is disturbing. Software patents must be abolished like social evil to encourage healthy competition and better products. Due to the broken system companies are today spending more money on courts and buying patents than on creating something new. Well, even if you create something new there is  fear of stepping on someone's stupid patents.

So, in a nutshell the current patent system is anti-innovation, it's anti-invention.