Quote: Apple's first slide-to-unlock patent was granted in 2010, its second in 2011, and on cue version 3.0 was just dropped on us. US patent number 8,286,103 issued yesterday and, as expected, it's even broader than the first two. The '103 patent moves past the limiting language of the first two patents that required that the unlock image move along a predefined path, or that it at least start and stop at predefined locations on the screen. The '103 patent now broadly covers continuously moving an image to a general unlock region on the screen to unlock the device....
...Heavy use of the predefined verbiage in the first two patents left the door open for competitors — namely Android OEMs — to implement unlock features that would likely avoid the patents. We saw Samsung, LG, HTC, and likely even Google beginning with stock Ice Cream Sandwich, come up with workarounds to Apple's patents. While some of the competition is still arguably sidestepping the coverage of the '103 patent with their previous workarounds — such as HTC with its lack of a distinct "unlock region" — others may need to look at yet another design tweak to avoid locking horns with Apple in the future.
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