ITC Rules For Apple in HTC Patent Case

MacRumors · Jul 15, 2011

A judge with the US International Trade Commission ruled today that HTC violated two of Apple's patents in a year-long case filed last March. Apple had accused HTC of violating 20 of its patents, and filed a second complaint this week, claiming infringement of five more patents. HTC has said it will appeal the decision.

When it initially filed the lawsuit, Apple CEO Steve Jobs explained why it was taking legal action:

We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.

If HTC's appeal fails, it will be required to settle with Apple over the patents. However, FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller notes the ITC decision could be very bad for Android, if Apple refuses to settle:

Depending on which two patents HTC infringes and on whether the Commission affirms the ALJ's decision, this could in a worst-case scenario result in a shutdown of many or even all Android-based HTC products in the U.S. market. In a less extreme scenario, HTC might have to remove certain functionality from its products, and that could result in a significant degradation of the user experience and quality of those devices.

Mueller notes that Apple has two ITC complaints and three federal lawsuits currently in motion against HTC, with 16 other patents in question aside from the ones in today's decision.

The United States International Trade Commission is an independent federal agency that, among other things, adjudicates cases involving imports that allegedly infringe intellectual property rights." It has the power, in rare cases, to ban infringing products from the country entirely.

Article Link: ITC Rules For Apple in HTC Patent Case

KPOM · Jul 15, 2011

Wow. This would be a HUGE deal if it sticks. I wonder what kind of concessions Apple is going to want?

*LTD* · Jul 15, 2011

Of course.

Apple was first to the market with the iPhone. And then all the look-alikes magically appeared out of nowhere.

The first (of likely many) difficulties Google and the box-makers will face from here on in.

When Jobs said "we patented the hell out of it", he wasn't kidding.

Fair warning to all competitors to respect what Apple did in June 2007.

The writing was on the wall already, especially with Android. One wonders what IP in Android is actually Google's. Add to all this the Apple-led consortium win in the Nortel patent bidding and things look rather shaky for Google.

LimeiBook86 · Jul 15, 2011

Good for Apple, they should stick up for their patents. It'll be very interesting to see what happens with this. It's taken so long to come to this stage, so we may have to wait even longer to discover what happens next.

Rocketman · Jul 15, 2011

I am in favor of the filings and rulings, but the whole principal of patent law is not to prevent folks from using intellectual property, but paying for it. The outcome here will not be exclusion of products or of usage rights, but compensation for same.

Apple values exclusivity over money so despite fully winning they lost.

Rocketman

Insight over noise. Want exclusivity of IP? Never, ever disclose it.

dethmaShine · Jul 15, 2011

*LTD* said:
Of course.

Apple was first to the market with the iPhone. And then all the look-aliked magically appeared out of nowhere.

The first (of likely many) difficulties Google and the box-makers will face from here on in.

When Jobs said "we patented the hell out of it", he wasn't kidding.

Fair warning to all competitors to respect what Apple did in June 2007.

The writing was on the wall already, especially with Android. One wonders what IP in Android is actually Google's. Add to all this the Apple-led consortium win in the Nortel patent bidding and things look rather shaky for Google.

Dude, why don't you try Engadget?

*LTD* · Jul 15, 2011

dethmaShine said:
Dude, why don't you try Engadget?

Reality is reality irrespective of internet tech sites.

Who the hell didn't see this coming a mile away?

addicted44 · Jul 15, 2011

Rocketman said:
I am in favor of the filings and rulings, but the whole principal of patent law is not to prevent folks from using intellectual property, but paying for it. The outcome here will not be exclusion of products or of usage rights, but compensation for same.

Apple values exclusivity over money so despite fully winning they lost.

Rocketman

Insight over noise.

I agree. Apple should licence those patents on a fair and reasonable basis. They should be awarded some retroactive money based on historical sales, and HTC should be made to pay Apple an additional punitive amount based on damages to Apple.

However, they should not be prevented from selling their phones. That is not the point of the patent process.

Benjamins · Jul 15, 2011

KPOM said:
Wow. This would be a HUGE deal if it sticks. I wonder what kind of concessions Apple is going to want?

Licencing?
If HTC got any valuable patents maybe a cross licencing?

The question should be, why do all the Android handset makers think they are in the clear.

Mattie Num Nums · Jul 15, 2011

Anyone that thinks this is good for us the consumer is wrong. This is doing nothing but turning into a lawsuit fest. Everyone is suing everyone for stupid things like "apparatus to push button to turn on." You mean the power button. Some reform is going to be necessary pretty quick here. Apple needs to defend its patents of course but at what point does common sense trump technology?

addicted44 said:
However, they should not be prevented from selling their phones. That is not the point of the patent process.

Apple wants a legal monopoly so it can keeps its 40+% margins. Doesn't that bother anyone? That they are essentially paying double for Apple products?

shompa · Jul 15, 2011

*LTD* said:
Of course.

Apple was first to the market with the iPhone. And then all the look-alikes magically appeared out of nowhere.

The first (of likely many) difficulties Google and the box-makers will face from here on in.

When Jobs said "we patented the hell out of it", he wasn't kidding.

Fair warning to all competitors to respect what Apple did in June 2007.

The writing was on the wall already, especially with Android. One wonders what IP in Android is actually Google's. Add to all this the Apple-led consortium win in the Nortel patent bidding and things look rather shaky for Google.

The most interesting thing is that Apple just got the Multi touch patent. It took almost 4 year to get it approved.

All other companies infringe on this.

So far this has been real strange.
Apple invents. Android clone. Android makes pays licensing fee to Microsoft.
Somehow MSFT gets money for Apple's inventions. Ballmer is a genius.

dethmaShine · Jul 15, 2011

*LTD* said:
Reality is reality irrespective of internet tech sites.

Who the hell didn't see this coming a mile away?

It's totally not about that.

It's your stupid dilemma that Apple is the only one in the right mind, patenting the right ****, doing the right **** for the consumers.
No doubt that Apple is definitely doing so; but there are a ton of companies that are trying to do so as well.

I am very happy that Apple finally holds a candle with these patents and trying to force HTC to get into a patent license agreement which has been literally 'stealing' some of the patents from Apple(no doubt Apple does 'steal' too).

Point being, you make it sound so ridiculous that Apple patented all the features of the smartphone and all companies are left naked, now to suck Apple's balls and will get sued by Apple until they go bankrupt.

Seriously, get off the 'Fanboy bandwagon'. I have stated before that I do like some of your posts, but your ridiculous insight to the Godlike Apple and ****-like other companies is very disgusting to read.

Apple may well being doing good; but they are not the only one innovating or doing good. Get a thought please; this time around a decent one.

addicted44 · Jul 15, 2011

*LTD* said:
The writing was on the wall already, especially with Android. One wonders what IP in Android is actually Google's. Add to all this the Apple-led consortium win in the Nortel patent bidding and things look rather shaky for Google.

As we are seeing over and over again, the people suing Google (which has under a few hundred patents, including a patent on their doodle), are not trolls. These are well established firms, which make huge investments in technology. And in too many cases Android is losing.

Examples include this, as well as the MS-HTC deal, which means MS makes more money out of Android than Google does.

And besides, we have the Oracle case, which should be a huge headache for Google, especially considering Sun sued MS for the exact same thing in the 90's, and won a huge award (btw, it was funny how the Tech world was so pro Sun, when Sun sued MS, but is so anti-Oracle, when Oracle is suing Google for the exact same thing).

*LTD* · Jul 15, 2011

Mattie Num Nums said:
Anyone that thinks this is good for us the consumer is wrong.

This has nothing to do with consumers. It's about respecting IP. If someone can't do that that they're not entitled to enrichment from it, and consumers certainly aren't entitled to those products.

Whether it's good for consumers is irrelevant. Of course, if you're a consumer who also markets a product and thus relies on the integrity of IP law then this is the system in action.

It's time for everyone to start taking IP seriously, because there are consequences for theft. And this goes for Apple as well.

ratzzo · Jul 15, 2011

This is getting ridiculous. No, wait, it already is. I'm all for everyone patenting their inventions but eventually some of these shouldn't be patentable or in the long run we will only see Apple having the best of the best. All fair, really, but I would prefer to see the patent friction alleviated.

I wonder where manufacturers would be if there were no restricting licenses like these, ergo a free market. Would we see the numbers as they are today? mm

edit to add I find this fair, if Apple licensed it they should have the upper hand on these things, but I dislike how a company alone can stop an entire market through patents and not solely by quality (which their products have as well)

addicted44 · Jul 15, 2011

dethmaShine said:
It's totally not about that.

It's your stupid dilemma that Apple is the only one in the right mind, patenting the right ****, doing the right **** for the consumers.
No doubt that Apple is definitely doing so; but there are a ton of companies that are trying to do so as well.

I am very happy that Apple finally holds a candle with these patents and trying to force HTC to get into a patent license agreement which has been literally 'stealing' some of the patents from Apple(no doubt Apple does 'steal' too).

Point being, you make it sound so ridiculous that Apple patented all the features of the smartphone and all companies are left naked, now to suck Apple's balls and will get sued by Apple until they go bankrupt.

Seriously, get off the 'Fanboy bandwagon'. I have stated before that I do like some of your posts, but your ridiculous insight to the Godlike Apple and ****-like other companies is very disgusting to read.

Apple may well being doing good; but they are not the only one innovating or doing good. Get a thought please; this time around a decent one.

Wow, this has really thrown you off your rocker...

No, Apple isn't the only one doing great stuff in the mobile platform. You can look at Palm (HP) and MS (honestly, WP7 is pretty good) who are doing new, interesting stuff. However, Android was a total rip-off of a LOT of things. Apple's design, and smartphone concept, in the user facing areas, and Java in the fundamentals.

*LTD* · Jul 15, 2011

ratzzo said:
This is getting ridiculous. No, wait, it already is. I'm all for everyone patenting their inventions but eventually some of these shouldn't be patentable or in the long run we will only see Apple having the best of the best.

You take the risks, you reap the rewards. Fair play to Apple.

If only MS or Google had pulled a June 2007, right?

But vision is pretty rare these days.

Click to expand...

shompa · Jul 15, 2011

Benjamins said:
Licencing?
If HTC got any valuable patents maybe a cross licencing?

The question should be, why do all the Android handset makers think they are in the clear.

Last 2 weeks all android makes have been in panic after Apple was granted the Multi touch patent.
HTC and 5 other android makers have signed deals with Microsoft. HTC pays 5 dollar per device to MSFT. The thinking is that MSFT patents would help android makers against Apple.

MSFT has got away with this before since they are extremely good business people. Remember how they cloned Mac operating system. It was ruled in the trial that MSFT had a license to clone MacOS.
Apple had signed a deal with Microsoft to make programs for MacOS. Somehow in this deal Apple had granted MSFT rights to copy their operating system. :roll eyes:

I just wished that all companies was as innovative as Apple.
I can name 2 MSFT innovations: Clippy and auto run.
Can name at least 50 Apple innovation. From the first digital camera to iPad.

addicted44 · Jul 15, 2011

*LTD* said:
This has nothing to do with consumers. It's about respecting IP. If someone can't do that that they're not entitled to enrichment from it, and consumers certainly aren't entitled to those products.

Whether it's good for consumers is irrelevant. Of course, if you're a consumer who also markets a product and thus relies on the integrity of IP law then this is the system in action.

It's time for everyone to start taking IP seriously, because there are consequences for theft. And this goes for Apple as well.

This is not accurate. IP exists to benefit the user. The idea is that it provides an incentive to innovate, which benefits the user. When IP starts suppressing innovation, then it is defeating its own purpose.

WP7, WebOS, even Blackberry's new OS are good attempts at innovation. The original Android was anything but. It was simply a ripoff of many different technologies.

sziehr · Jul 15, 2011

this is great news for apple. They spent a lot of money to develop and patent these inovations. This is bad for HTC and MOTO and the rest it will set up a precident. The whole concept was they could have tried to license the tech but they decided to just wait to get sued. The consumer is not helped by this but they played well with in the rules and guidelines. There is always an uproar when apple defends its turf but never when they get caught and do the right thing which is settle. Apple gets busted all the time for accidental infringement and ends up paying out for it why should HTC and MOTO and Google get a free pass just cause the ULA of the OS says open source money is exchanged hands.

Rocketman · Jul 15, 2011

addicted44 said:
I agree. Apple should licence those patents on a fair and reasonable basis. They should be awarded some retroactive money based on historical sales, and HTC should be made to pay Apple an additional punitive amount based on damages to Apple.

However, they should not be prevented from selling their phones. That is not the point of the patent process.

There are lots of patent "trolls". There are painfully few patent rights licensing "trolls".

Rocketman

Exploit the world, don't improve it!

Rodimus Prime · Jul 15, 2011

Since the patents have not been listed that HTC lost on I would not be surprised in the least that they were minor ones and will have little if any effect.

The press would have a field day if it was a major one but this one safe to say minor.

addicted44 · Jul 15, 2011

shompa said:
Last 2 weeks all android makes have been in panic after Apple was granted the Multi touch patent.
HTC and 5 other android makers have signed deals with Microsoft. HTC pays 5 dollar per device to MSFT. The thinking is that MSFT patents would help android makers against Apple.

MSFT has got away with this before since they are extremely good business people. Remember how they cloned Mac operating system. It was ruled in the trial that MSFT had a license to clone MacOS.
Apple had signed a deal with Microsoft to make programs for MacOS. Somehow in this deal Apple had granted MSFT rights to copy their operating system. :roll eyes:

I just wished that all companies was as innovative as Apple.
I can name 2 MSFT innovations: Clippy and auto run.
Can name at least 50 Apple innovation. From the first digital camera to iPad.

Thats nonsense. MS innovates a hell of a lot. They are just really poor at converting their innovations (and patents) into products people want. However, the amount of new stuff coming out of MS labs, etc. far eclipses that coming out of Apple.

HTC and the likes are not signing deals with MS to protect them from Apple. They are signing deals with MS to protect them from MS. MS also has a ton of patents they can bury them under.

CristobalHuet · Jul 15, 2011

I'm shocked it took this long, frankly.

ratzzo · Jul 15, 2011

You take the risks, you reap the rewards. Fair play to Apple.

If only MS or Google had pulled a June 2007, right?

But vision is pretty rare these days.

Fair to Apple to have a big slice of the smartphone cake since they were the ones who sparked the smartphone market in the first place. But if Apple becomes the sole competitor in a race the rest will fall behind just because of things like patents. What I'm trying to say is that I would like to see what the competitors could come up with if they weren't restricted by patents.

ITC Rules For Apple in HTC Patent Case

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