Samsung last night informed US District Court Judge Lucy Koh that Apple's "rubber band" patent has been tentatively invalidated by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Samsung's filing (PDF) said the USPTO decision is relevant to the post-trial wrangling resulting from Apple's $1 billion win on patent infringement claims. Specifically, Samsung will use it as evidence against Apple's motion for permanent sales bans and increased damages.

The patent office decision (PDF) is not final, but it is interesting. Apple's rubber band claim is rejected because of two pieces of prior art, one a patent by AOL and the other a patent by the very same Apple employee responsible for the rubber band patent.

The patent that was partially invalidated describes "List scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display," and lists Apple user interface designer Bas Ording as the inventor. (The rubber band effect occurs when you pull content beyond the edges of a touchscreen, release your finger, and the document bounces back into place.) Samsung was found to infringe this patent in 18 devices that were part of the Apple v. Samsung trial.

But the patent, filed for in December 2007 and granted in December 2008, has similarities to a second patent—from the same Bas Ording along with other Apple employees—that was filed for in December 2005 and granted in August 2010. This patent describes a "continuous scrolling list with acceleration," and the patent office's decision this week said it anticipates the claims in the rubber band patent that was used at trial.

The patent office also cited a European patent filed in 2003 by AOL, which relates to detecting the layout of a webpage, comparing the layout to the window it's being displayed in, and reformatting the page to align with the window.

All 20 claims in the rubber band patent were tentatively invalidated, but the one that's relevant to the trial is #19, which reads in full:

A device, comprising: a touch screen display; one or more processors; memory; and one or more programs, wherein the one or more programs are stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors, the programs including: instructions for displaying a first portion of an electronic document; instructions for detecting a movement of an object on or near the touch screen display; instructions for translating the electronic document displayed on the touch screen display in a first direction to display a second portion of the electronic document, wherein the second portion is different from the first portion, in response to detecting the movement; instructions for displaying an area beyond an edge of the electronic document and displaying a third portion of the electronic document, wherein the third portion is smaller than the first portion, in response to the edge of the electronic document being reached while translating the electronic document in the first direction while the object is still detected on or near the touch screen display; and instructions for translating the electronic document in a second direction until the area beyond the edge of the electronic document is no longer displayed to display a fourth portion of the electronic document, wherein the fourth portion is different from the first portion, in response to detecting that the object is no longer on or near the touch screen display.

While the USPTO decision may well help Samsung in the post-trial maneuvering or an appeal, the company still has to contend with several other utility and design patents from Apple that it was found to infringe. The so-called rubber band technology has significance beyond the Apple v. Samsung trial, as Apple has used it to win at least one ruling against the Google-owned Motorola Mobility. But the fact that it was invalidated partly by one of Apple's own patents illustrates that the company from Cupertino has quite the large patent portfolio, indeed.