Samsung Galaxy S4 might infringe LG’s Patents

According to Yonhap news in S. Korea, LG Electronics claimed that Samsung’s brand new smartphone Galaxy S4 might infringe LG Electronics’ patents US8331993 and US20120083312. The functions of Galaxy S4 at issue are the eye sensing and tracking technologies: automatically turned off when the user stopped to looking at the screen; automatically perform and pause video based on user's gaze information etc.

Samsung Electronics, however, rebutted LG’s infringement claim by arguing that its implementation is based on Samsung’s pending patents and different from LG’s methods claimed in the patents.

The relevant parts of the patents are as follows.

US8331993: Mobile terminal and operation control method thereof

10. A method of controlling the operation of a mobile terminal, the method comprising: detecting user's gaze information which indicates a line connecting a user's eyes to a display unit of the mobile terminal; changing a first delay time T1 to a second delay time T2 by determining whether the user stares at the display unit based on the user's gaze information; and executing screen lock when a user input is not received for the second delay time T2, wherein the changing step further comprises extending the first delay time T1 to the second delay time T2 when determining that the user stares at the display unit based on the user's gaze information or reducing the first delay time T1 to the second delay time T2 when determining that the user does not stare at the display unit based on the user's gaze information.

11. The method of claim 10, the method further comprising: capturing an image of the user for detecting the user's gaze information.

US20120083312: Mobile terminal and operation control method thereof

8. A mobile terminal, comprising: a camera; a display module configured to display a stereoscopic 3D image, which is created based on the disparity between left- and right-eye images; and a controller configured to, in response to an occurrence of a communication event being detected, determine a position of a user's gaze on the stereoscopic 3D image by performing eye tracking based on an image of the user captured by the camera and to displaying notice information indicating the occurrence of the communication event at a portion of the stereoscopic 3D image corresponding to the determined gaze position.

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