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The latest in the ongoing Palm-Xerox saga, the US Court of Appeal has instructed the District Court in the case to review the validity of the Xerox Unistroke patent. The District Court ruled last year that Palm's Graffiti handwriting recognition system, a core component of the Palm OS since its debut, was in violation of Xerox's patent on a similar handwriting system called Unistrokes, awarded in 1997. Both Graffiti and Unistrokes are built around the concept of reducing each character to a single continuous stroke with a stylus to aid in recognition and writing speed. The Court of Appeal has upheld the District Court's ruling, but has also instructed the District Court to rexamine whether the interpretation of the patent used in the original case was over-broad. Palm has argued throughout the case that an interpretation of the Xerox patent as covering any single-stroke-based handwriting system, such as Graffiti, is invalid.
Regardless of the District Court's decision, PalmSource has previously stated that it will not be changing its plans to switch to the Jot-based Graffiti 2 system in all upcoming devices, a move announced in January. The Jot system includes several multi-stroke characters that more closely mimic "standard" English writing styles.
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