According to foreign media Apple insider, a Swedish company called Neonode filed a lawsuit alleging that Apple's QuickPath and slide unlock features infringed its patents. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, claims that Apple's gesture based IOS navigation and QuickPath feature directly infringes Neonode's intellectual property rights.

The intellectual property right involved in the case is US Patent No. 8095879, which covers the interaction based on gesture and touch sensitive display, as well as US Patent No. 8812993, which mainly focuses on the "clickable activated icon" on the touch screen display.

Neonode, a Swedish based optical touch-screen technology company, won the patent in early 2012, though the company claims it was first filed a decade ago. Around 2000, the company also produced several touch-screen based mobile phones in Europe, such as Neonode N1 and Neonode N2.

At about the same time, apple is suing Android device makers such as Samsung and Motorola for violating its "slide unlock" patent. It is worth noting that the patent of Neonode is used by Samsung as a defense to Apple's lawsuit.

Now, nearly eight years later, Neonode sued Apple again, asking apple to further adopt touch based gesture control in devices such as iPhone 11 pro and newer iPad Pro variants, giving up the home key and using the slide up unlocking function instead. Neonode also claims that Apple's provision of third-party sliding gesture keyboard applications is a direct infringement of its patent 879, as these applications are "hosted on servers owned / operated by Apple or downloaded to Apple devices at Apple's direction.".

Based on the availability of third-party keyboard applications, Neonode's lawsuit lists a broader range of iPhone, iPad and apple watch devices, including iPhone 4S and iPad air 2, as infringing products.

While Neonode claims to have licensed its touch based gesture technology to well-known companies, it points out that apple is not among them. What's more, the Swedish company claims that Apple has known patent 879 since at least February 2012, and that its infringement "has always existed and is intentional.".

"Apple has never, and has never, been authorized by the '879' patent, nor by any owner of the '879' patent, to engage in the conduct described in this article." The patent reads.

Neonode asked for a jury trial in the case, compensation for Apple's alleged infringement and a permanent ban on its use of the technology.

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