Apple has won an injunction against the sale of HTC smartphones in the US after the Taiwanese manufacturer was found to have infringed on an Apple patent in the production of a number of its smartphones.
However the US International Trade Commission has given HTC until April to adhere to the ban and has found the company guilty of infringing just one patent, rather than the 10 that Apple accused them of, causing experts to brand the ban superfluous.
It is not clear how many HTC devices are guilty of the infringement, but Grace Lei, the company’s general counsel, said that the ruling involved just a small user interface feature and that “HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon.”
The apparent minor nature of the infringement and the timescale which HTC has been given to remove it should mean that disruption to HTC’s US operations should be minimal, a view shared by analyst Florian Mueller.
“If Google can implement this popular feature, which users of modern-day smartphones really expect, without infringing on the two patent claims found infringed, this import ban won’t have any effect whatsoever,” said Mueller.
“This ruling falls far short of anything would force HTC out of the U.S. market in the near term,” he added. “Out of ten patents originally asserted, Apple finally managed to enforce one, and it’s one of medium value.”
Last month, Apple was cleared by the ITC of violating HTC’s patents, the most recent of a series of claims and counterclaims made by the two companies since Apple alleged that the HTC-manufactured Google Nexus One infringed its patents. The row has escalated to such an extent that HTC even acquired patents from Google in order to strengthen its claim against Apple.
HTC’s legal woes continued when intellectual property company IPcom successfully proved its patents had been infringed by HTC’s 3G smartphones and won an injunction banning their sale in Germany. IPcom, which acquired Bosch’s portfolio of 160 mobile patents, began enforcing the ban last month and has threatened legal action against German retailers which disobey the order.
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They really need to get a clue and throw this rubbish out, the US patents system is the laughing stock of the world. Patenting the fact you could pick out information from an email? Really. Well in which case I would be pushing for prior art as people have been picking information out of emails before apple even started making phones.
How about the relatives of Alexnder Graham Bell suing all phone makers for actually using his patented product..the telephone? I mean how far back does one go? Surely the goalis to perfect the phones with each new model that is released making the customers happier. Taking ideas from others and perfecting them is the goal for any industry. It is what the Japanese were masters at.