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HTC Already Finished with Workaround for Patent Issue

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Apr 12, 2001
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Just a day after the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled that several HTC devices violate an Apple patent and scheduled an import ban on those devices to take effect in April, Bloomberg reported that HTC has already completed development on a workaround that it says will allow the company to avoid the ban.
HTC Corp. has already completed a technical workaround to skirt a U.S. agency ruling that found a user interface in some handsets infringed an Apple Inc. patent.

"It's actually quite rarely used," HTC Chief Executive Officer Peter Chou said of the feature. The company will continue to work with Google Inc. to "protect ourselves," Chou said in a media briefing at the company's Taoyuan, Taiwan headquarters today.
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htc_apple_google_logos.jpg



Google's Andy Rubin was also present at today's event to stand by his company's hardware partner, with Rubin noting that the HTC case is just part of the early stages of the patent battle involving a number of smartphone companies and which will take several years to play out. The Wall Street Journal has more on Rubin's comments:
"The majority of these patents [in Apple's complaint against HTC] were claimed in the operating system itself, but actually in this case what was allowed...is some user interface feature of an application, not the operating system itself, so that's why I'm very optimistic in basically my desire to achieve patent peace on the overall platform," Mr. Rubin said.
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HTC had noted immediately after the ITC decision was announced on Monday that the company had already "created alternate solutions" for the data tapping user interface design that was ruled to infringe upon Apple's patents, but it now appears that the HTC will be able to easily transition to what it believes is a non-infringing alternative.

Article Link: HTC Already Finished with Workaround for Patent Issue
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/12/20/htc-already-finished-with-workaround-for-patent-issue/
Last edited by a moderator:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

If it was that fast and easy, why not do that in the first place and avoid the cost of defending that part of the suit?
 
rtdunham said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

If it was that fast and easy, why not do that in the first place and avoid the cost of defending that part of the suit?
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Probably weren't aware it was a patent violation, or wanted to see if they could get away with it. Its not like its cost them much to try.
 
So of all the patents Apple accused HTC of supposedly infringing on, it was solely the auto-detect phone number application that the ITC claimed was a valid violation? Meanwhile, most of the cases of the Apple v. Samsung battle have been thrown out and the one that stuck was related to a gallery app (and the ban in Australia)?

That's a lot of rich lawyers and the march continues.
 
rtdunham said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

If it was that fast and easy, why not do that in the first place and avoid the cost of defending that part of the suit?
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Because they didn't know about this patent until Apple filed against them ? Because frankly, reading the patent, they didn't even know if Apple's claims were justified ?

A lot of reasons why they waited. Remember, 9 out of the 10 patents claims Apple filed against HTC were outright rejected. If they had gone and fixed those "10 infringements" in the beginning, they would have worked for basically nothing on 9 of them.

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benthewraith said:
So of all the patents Apple accused HTC of supposedly infringing on, it was solely the auto-detect phone number application that the ITC claimed was a valid violation? Meanwhile, most of the cases of the Apple v. Samsung battle have been thrown out and the one that stuck was related to a gallery app (and the ban in Australia)?
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The gallery app bounce-back scrolling was also fixed by Samsung and the ban never went into effect in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, the injunction in Australia has been thrown out on the 2 patent claims.

The only court action against Samsung that is holding at this point is the injunction in Germany, based solely on the Community Design registration. The same one the Dutch judge threw out as "too simplistic, wouldn't hold up in court".

So yes, Apple is pretty much using these suits as stalling tactics for the competition. Some people here also think Apple is white in all of this and that it's only the competition that is infringing on Apple's patents. But Apple has been found to infringe on the patents of others as well over the years and frankly, that's just the way the business is. There are so many patents out there for so many obvious and non-obvious thing, that you can't release a product in 2011 and not be in infringement of somebody's IP.
 
HTC already has a work around, so in this case, the lawyers on both sides really did win. Nothing changes but they get paid a ton of money.
 
rtdunham said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

If it was that fast and easy, why not do that in the first place and avoid the cost of defending that part of the suit?
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Because you just don't read about 6 million patent documents simply because you are afraid that you might infringe some trivial patent like this one (which should not have been granted in the first place - if it is simple to work around, then it is not even worthy of a patent). The industry doesn't work like this and there are even good reasons to NOT read ANY patent document during a development cycle; because if you do this, you KNOWINGLY infringe on a patent, and that can add to the problem.

There are similar reasons why developers who reverse engineer products will NEVER be on the team that implements the product that contains the knowledge gained from the reverse engineering process. Reverse engineering is legal as long as it follows the so-called "clean room" process, and that implies that one team reverse engineers and neatly documents their findings and another team then is allowed to take that documentation and base their own designs on this documentation.

Developers create, implement and ship a product -- and if it becomes successful, somebody will sue them anyway. Success attracts litigation because there might be some money in it, and companies with successful products like HTC, Samsung, Apple, Microsoft or IBM get all the flak that there is. Because at the end of the day, they all infringe on somebody's patents.

You should also not forget that as perverted as it might seem, litigation is as normal in every business as it is for an employee to take a lunch break.
 
Out of curiosity apple never used its multitouch patent, which I think it is the most related patent revolutionizing the iPhone if they really want to sue.

All the involved patents are kind of shabby.
 
So good for HTC. Too bad they didn't do their homework, or simply choose not to violate patents BEFORE producing their products.

But I suppose one of the problems with current patent law is that it actually is quite difficult to determine when (or even if) you are actually in violation. In this case I suspect they knew they were in violation because of the speed at which they had a fix in hand. Just my speculation, mind you, but still.

Not that any of it matters much. Keeps the lawyers employed, anyway.
 
nanotlj said:
Out of curiosity apple never used its multitouch patent, which I think it is the most related patent revolutionizing the iPhone if they really want to sue.

All the involved patents are kind of shabby.
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Which multi touch patent? Apple doesn't have a patent on "multi touch"

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dernhelm said:
In this case I suspect they knew they were in violation because of the speed at which they had a fix in hand. Just my speculation, mind you, but still.
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Or it was obvious a workaround
 
nanotlj said:
Out of curiosity apple never used its multitouch patent, which I think it is the most related patent revolutionizing the iPhone if they really want to sue.
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That's because Apple holds no such patent. They have patents on different gestures and methods of implementing Multi-touch, but they don't hold a broad patent on multi-touch itself.
 
Yeah right....

"It's actually quite rarely used," HTC Chief Executive Officer Peter Chou said of the feature. "In fact, we work hard at putting patent-infringing features in our software that we later claim as useless just so we can go to court. Going to court is fun. Everyone should do it."
 
As I said in the other story - this whole "situation" is pretty meaningless. Yes - Apple defended (as they should) their patent. But in the end there's no win/loss for any company.

The consumer doesn't care about these types of things. There was never going to be a ban. For Apple and HTC, it's just onto the next case...
 
mdriftmeyer said:
Expect this to be just the first ruling the ITC presides over.
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It's not the first ruling about an Apple case. And you're right, it won't be the last.

I count at least 15 ITC cases (search here) pending between Apple and another company. Interestingly, it looks like in most of them, Apple is the defendant.

The ITC is just loving the attention it's getting over this. They've carved out a nice little niche for themselves. Job security :)


rtdunham said:
If it was that fast and easy, why not do that in the first place and avoid the cost of defending that part of the suit?
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Apple doesn't rewrite everything every time they get hit with a patent lawsuit, either. They first defend themselves.

KnightWRX said:
So yes, Apple is pretty much using these suits as stalling tactics for the competition..
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This.

PeterQVenkman said:
HTC already has a work around, so in this case, the lawyers on both sides really did win. Nothing changes but they get paid a ton of money.
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And this.
 
*LTD* said:
Good. HTC needs all the sales they can get, anyway.

http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=1768084

http://gearburn.com/2011/11/htc-sees-gloomy-year-for-mobe-sales/

The shine on the HTC plastic is wearing off. But then again, one Android OEM will just replace another.

Maybe Samsung can start finding dome of their own quick workarounds as well.
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Stop with the childish stabs at all the companies under the sun except Apple. If you're only attack at them is for using plastic then you lead a pretty pathetic argument. The 3G & 3G used plastic, and the 4 & 4 have a huge defect rate because of the silly/pointless use of a glass back.
 
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