In 2020, the EU Patent Office Rejected an Apple Invention relating to Under-Display Optical Fingerprint Technology
One of Apple's April patent applications that was filed in Europe titled "Under-Display Optical Fingerprint Sensor with Narrow Field-of-View (NFV) Collimator and a Thin-Film Transistor (TFT)-based Organic Imager" was definitely different read. In it, we read that the EU Patent Office in Germany rejected Apple's patent on the grounds that specific patent claims (1, 2, 9-11 and 17 and 18) "
lacked novelty" and that certain claims (1-20) lacked "
inventive step."
Apple's legal representatives responded by stating that they respectfully disagreed with the EU's Patent Office decision on patentability and set out their case accordingly. The letter was signed and dated on July 24, 2020.