Taiwan’s Premier expresses concern over Apple’s “slide to unlock” patent

A couple of days ago it seemed like Apple scored themselves a major victory when the patent for the “slide to unlock” feature was granted to them. This raised many concerns, especially for manufacturers of Android and Windows Phone handsets, whereby the slide to unlock feature was present in many of their products. While Apple has yet to capitalize on this patent, Taiwan’s Premier, Wu Den-yih, has express concern over this patent grant.

Premier Wu Den-yih has directed relevant government agencies to assess what sort of impact Apple’s patent would have on local Taiwanese companies, especially those in the smartphone and tablet sectors, such as HTC, ASUS and Acer. These companies are probably some of the bigger names in the Android and Windows Phone industry.

If Apple were to seek some sort of injunction or licensing for this patent, those companies along with other OEMs around the world who have been using the slide to unlock feature would be hit pretty hard financially, considering the number of smartphones and tablets out there that utilize this feature. Premier Wu has directed the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Industrial Technology Research Institute to look into this matter, and to collaborate if necessary and help out domestic companies should legal disputes arise with Apple.