Apple took a big hit in the tech company’s ongoing battle to protect its patents when the US Patent and Trademark Office rejected all 20 claims for US Patent 7,479,949—better known as the Steve Jobs Patent.

The Steve Jobs Patent refers to Apple’s broad multi-touch patent, covering many of the company’s revolutionary mobile touch-screen device swipes and pinches.

Apple filed the patent in 2008, describing it as a “touch screen device, method and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics.”

Apple has used the patent in many of its intellectual-property litigation against competitors Samsung and Motorola. In August, a California jury ruled Samsung infringed the patent, and in October an ITC judge concurred. But if the patent does not survive the US PTO review, that ruling may be nullified. Still, the present action isn’t final, and Apple has two months to contest the decision.

“It is simply too early to make any sweeping conclusions at this point,” Brian Love, an assistant professor of law at Santa Clara University School of Law, told Wired. “Office action rejections during re-examination are common and rarely are fatal to the entire patent.”

Love explained that 89 percent of patents survive in some form after re-examination. The Patent might be approved without change, or it may survive in some amended form. If, however, the patent is amended, Apple will not be able to recover the damages awarded for infringement that took place prior to the amendment. It would not, however, mean put an end to Apple’s lawsuits against Samsung and Motorola, as the Steve Jobs Patent is only one of many patents the company has cited in its claims of infringement.

Should the first Office actions tentatively invalidating… touchscreen heuristics patents be affirmed at the end of the proceedings,” patent expert Florian Mueller wrote in his blog, “Apple would lose… iconic patents, but it would still have thousands of other patents, including hundreds of multi-touch patents.”