Apple's claim to the "pinch to zoom" patent has been rejected by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), again. Last December 2012, the same office already rejected Apple's claim to the said patent.

Obviously, Apple appealed, but the USPTO's decision was still a rejection. The company can still appeal though, but reports were saying that chances of an approval are nil. Apple initially filed the case against Samsung for "infringement" of a technology it created.

However, Samsung believed that the workaround it used for the feature was "perfectly legal". Since the filing of the case against it, Samsung has been pressing for its dismissal.

The contested patent, "pinch to zoom", was the technology that Apple devices currently use to distinguish between the movements of a user's fingers. One finger can be used to scroll, while a pinching movement with two fingers activated the zoom function.

The "pinch to zoom" patent, however, was only one of the many patents that involved Apple and Samsung. Bearing in mind that these procedures take a long time to settle and that each company will be exhausting its appeals, the case may drag on until around 2017.

Until then, the battle between the two companies was waged in smartphone sales. Samsung led with 70.7 million units sold, whereas Apple only sold 37.4 million in Q1 2013. Samsung's sales rose 61%, but Apple's rose only 6.6%, according to research firm IDC. As a result, Samsung now owned almost 33% of the world's smartphone market, while Apple owned only 17%.