I don't know what percentage of patents survive by being read narrowly by a court.
The thing is that three things can happen to a patent when it is challenged:
1) The court can say "that's not a valid patent" kind of like the Supreme Court recently did in Mayo v. Prometheus (Prometheus patented how to interpret test results. The Supreme Court said you couldn't patent the results of the test, just the method of testing.)
2) The court can say "Ok, so the following is legitimate prior art, and additionally if we read this broadly, it can't be patentable, and so what's left when we read it narrowly and leave out the areas covered by the prior art is yours." In this case the patent is "strengthened" in the sense that everyone has a better idea of what will happen next time in court but it is also narrowed.
3) The court can let the patent stand as-is.
The problem is that while the latter two seem like they strengthen the legal position the next time around, where a patent was previously unknown or disputed, they also weaken the market impact because they provide larger reasons to work around the patent.
So I don't know. I don't see an upside for Apple here other than a very, very temporary edge in the marketplace.
I don't know what percentage of patents survive by being read narrowly by a court.
The thing is that three things can happen to a patent when it is challenged:
1) The court can say "that's not a valid patent" kind of like the Supreme Court recently did in Mayo v. Prometheus (Prometheus patented how to interpret test results. The Supreme Court said you couldn't patent the results of the test, just the method of testing.)
2) The court can say "Ok, so the following is legitimate prior art, and additionally if we read this broadly, it can't be patentable, and so what's left when we read it narrowly and leave out the areas covered by the prior art is yours." In this case the patent is "strengthened" in the sense that everyone has a better idea of what will happen next time in court but it is also narrowed.
3) The court can let the patent stand as-is.
The problem is that while the latter two seem like they strengthen the legal position the next time around, where a patent was previously unknown or disputed, they also weaken the market impact because they provide larger reasons to work around the patent.
So I don't know. I don't see an upside for Apple here other than a very, very temporary edge in the marketplace.