Technology / Mobile phone
Apple Inc narrowly wins patent battle against HTC
21 Dec 2011 at 05:40hrs | Views
Apple scored a narrow victory against HTC last night as a court ruled that the latter copied its touch screen software for clicking on phone numbers in documents from the iPhone.
However the U.S. international trade commission ruled in favour of HTC on another three claims by Apple that its software had been copied.
The U.S. trade agencys said any HTC phones with the offending software will not be allowed into the U.S. from April 19, 2012.
Experts say however that the International Trade Commission's decision would not hurt the Asian phone giant because the ruling covered just one patent that HTC has time to work around.
HTC gets almost half its revenue from the U.S. market.
'It's a limited victory for a variety of reasons,' said Peter Toren, an intellectual property litigator and partner with the Shulman Rogers law firm in the United States.
He said the ruling does not stop HTC from importing as many phones as it likes until April.
'It gives HTC plenty of time to implement a design-around, which I understand they are already working on,' he said. 'The order does in fact take effect in April, but the practical impact won't be felt for some months after that.'
HTC said on Monday the ruling was a win for it and added that it planned to completely remove technology linked to the patent from its phones.
The company called the technology a 'small user-interface experience.'
The patent in question, '647, relates to technology that helps users clicking on phone numbers and other types of data in a document, such as an email, to either dial directly or click on the data to bring up more information.
HTC said it was 'gratified' that the judge reversed some of the earlier decisions of an administrative law judge, who ruled in July that HTC infringed two Apple patents in making its Android smartphones.
'We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it. However, the '647 patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon,' Grace Lei, HTC's general counsel said in a statement.
Apple spokeswoman Carolyn Wu said of the ruling: 'We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.'
However the U.S. international trade commission ruled in favour of HTC on another three claims by Apple that its software had been copied.
The U.S. trade agencys said any HTC phones with the offending software will not be allowed into the U.S. from April 19, 2012.
Experts say however that the International Trade Commission's decision would not hurt the Asian phone giant because the ruling covered just one patent that HTC has time to work around.
HTC gets almost half its revenue from the U.S. market.
'It's a limited victory for a variety of reasons,' said Peter Toren, an intellectual property litigator and partner with the Shulman Rogers law firm in the United States.
He said the ruling does not stop HTC from importing as many phones as it likes until April.
'It gives HTC plenty of time to implement a design-around, which I understand they are already working on,' he said. 'The order does in fact take effect in April, but the practical impact won't be felt for some months after that.'
HTC said on Monday the ruling was a win for it and added that it planned to completely remove technology linked to the patent from its phones.
The company called the technology a 'small user-interface experience.'
The patent in question, '647, relates to technology that helps users clicking on phone numbers and other types of data in a document, such as an email, to either dial directly or click on the data to bring up more information.
HTC said it was 'gratified' that the judge reversed some of the earlier decisions of an administrative law judge, who ruled in July that HTC infringed two Apple patents in making its Android smartphones.
'We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it. However, the '647 patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon,' Grace Lei, HTC's general counsel said in a statement.
Apple spokeswoman Carolyn Wu said of the ruling: 'We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.'
Source - DM
