Some interesting insight from FossPatent site..
http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/11/apple-htc-ten-year-license-deal-shows.html
Apple just published a joint statement with HTC announcing the settlement of their Android patent dispute more than 32 months after it started. This is the third significant smartphone patent settlement since June 2011. Previously, Apple settled with Nokia, and Microsoft settled with Barnes & Noble. Apple has yet to settle with wholly-owned Google subsidiary Motorola Mobility and its main rival among device makers, Samsung.
Google officials including former CEO and now-chairman Eric Schmidt have repeatedly denied that Android has a patent infringement problem that needs to be solved through royalty-bearing license deals. But Google's rhetoric is out of touch with reality and inconsistent with the path chosen by its device maker partners. Google's OEMs definitely realize that they must approach the problem constructively and take care of themselves rather than trust Google on this.
A month ago I published an updated list of Android patent infringement findings, and since then, Apple also won a preliminary ITC ruling against Samsung over four more patents, meaning that 20 Apple and Microsoft patents have so far been found by courts in different jurisdictions to be infringed by Android-based devices. A preliminary ITC ruling on Apple's second complaint against HTC, over a set of patents that had significant overlap with the first Samsung case in California, was due later this month (November 27).
Here's the full text of today's Apple-HTC statement:
HTC and Apple Settle Patent Dispute
All Patent Litigation Between the Companies Dismissed
TAIPEI, Taiwan and CUPERTINO, California--November 10, 2012--HTC and Apple® have reached a global settlement that includes the dismissal of all current lawsuits and a ten-year license agreement. The license extends to current and future patents held by both parties. The terms of the settlement are confidential.
'HTC is pleased to have resolved its dispute with Apple, so HTC can focus on innovation instead of litigation,' said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC.
'We are glad to have reached a settlement with HTC,' said Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. 'We will continue to stay laser focused on product innovation.'
If litigation is the question, licensing is, once again, the answer.
The settlement is surprising and unsurprising at the same time. The timing wasn't expected since neither party had massive leverage over the other, though the upcoming preliminary ITC ruling I mentioned could have significantly strengthened Apple's position. HTC (including its entire corporate group including S3 Graphics and Via Technologies) had not enforced even any patents against Apple, and Apple was only enforcing a single-patent U.S. import ban, not because its case was weak but because most of its claims had not even come to judgment after al of this time. But it makes a whole lot of sense that Apple would settle with HTC, and that HTC would accept the terms Apple has imposed (which were not disclosed but are likely somewhat onerous), prior to other Apple-Android settlements. Both companies simply have other priorities to focus on. For Apple, the competitive challenge it faces from Samsung and from Google's plan to use Motorola Mobility's patents to reach a point of mutually assured destruction are far bigger issues. If Apple wanted to be embroiled in litigation with a third Android device maker, HTC would no longer be the choice at this stage -- Amazon, for example, would be a higher priority. And while HTC didn't have to fear much from Apple's litigation in the nearest term, it probably knew that it couldn't win this fight in the long run, and it now needs to focus on its business. It recently lost market share and reported disappointing financial results.
That's right, not all iPhones are created equal, or at least not all of them are created in China. Foxconn also has factories in countries outside Asia, and there have been reports that some new iPhones are already being produced by Foxconn in Brazil.
