HTC Cites Patents Obtained From Google in New Lawsuit Against Apple

[hot spare]

One of the patents 6,868,283 (Technique allowing a status bar user response on a portable device graphic user interface)

This appears to me as the notification system patent. Simple, but could be dangerous in court.

http://goo.gl/N7lNX

It says "The present invention relates to a method for utilizing a graphic user interface in a portable electronic device. Specifically, the present invention pertains to a method of using a portion of a graphic user interface display to provide information to the user without disrupting an application in progress. The user interface provides tools that enable the user to answer or reject an incoming call, without interruption of applications already operating on the device during the call. On a portable electronic device that combines computer functions and wireless telephone functions, the user is able to view caller ID information, in an information window, while using another application. Further, the user is able to make a decision about answering or rejecting the call and execute the appropriate response, all without having to interrupt the application currently in use. It is appreciated that the portable electronic device could be a cellular phone, a personal data assistant, a pager, etc."

 

[BrianKonarsMac]

You want the patent troll to win?

Would love to hear your reasoning on this - how is HTC the patent troll? Apple may have to sue to stay ahead, but it can't fight everyone and win, and that is the direction this is headed.

 

[840quadra]

You should know that innovation leads to litigation. Furthermore, for you education, one of the biggest patent battles of the twentith century was between an auto manufacturer and what many on this board would call a patent troll. The troll in this case was an engineer that invented interruptable windshield wiper action. It was completely ripped off by the auto industry who figured that they were too big to sue. It took decades but eventually the engineer did win.

If you want innovation ten the patent system is the way it can be encouraged. The engineer didn't need to go into the car manufacturing business to have a legit claim to his invention, but he did need to litigate to force big industry to pay him for his work.

Haha, For my education. Nice little jab there

My comment on litigation was in the exact context of the post of mine you quoted. These companies need to stop going out of their way to file the next lawsuit, and continue working on all these inventions we all love to use. If they are patenting & protecting items that they invented, or came up with, awesome, they should!

FWIW, I am actually fully aware of that case you mentioned, and Robert Kearns. I have been in Detroit a few times Regardless, you have a great example of how the patent system is intended to work, though I wouldn't call it the biggest patent battle. Kearns was not a troll, he was the actual inventor, who tried to sell his technology to an auto industry that rejected his idea. They, in turn, violated patent law by using the technology anyway without licensing or purchasing the rights.

Kearns didn't go out and purchase the invention or patent from someone not using it, in order to stop companies from innovating, or charge them licensing fees. He was protecting his own invention, not one he purchased from someone else as in this recent case with HTC.

 

[iTim Dragan]

Huh

OMG, again htc crap is trying to beat apple ambits own a game don't they understand apple invented the smartphones etc and they are copying, how in the world can they lawsuit apple when these are all apple ideas go Apple and boo htc yiu guys copy but also make your products crap!!!!!

 

[SandynJosh]

One of the patents 6,868,283 (Technique allowing a status bar user response on a portable device graphic user interface)

This appears to me as the notification system patent. Simple, but could be dangerous in court.

A patent can easily be granted that don't stand up in court. With some luck a whole raft of these patents (Apple's as well as others) will get court tested during this whole bruhaha and that will clear the air greatly. Often a company will pay a small patent royalty rather then incur the cost of challenging the patent in court, but in situations like the Apple/HTC suit and counter suit there is far more on the line than royalty payments. Apple wants to deny HTC (and viz a viz all other companies that they can bring to heel if they win this case) the right to manufacture using Apple's patents.

It may be that both Apple and HTC will be recognized as having some valid patents. In that case, both companies may agree to horse trade and declare a truce of sorts, or than can go back and innovate solutions around particular patent issues. Regardless, with court tested patents Apple will have greater threatening power with the other 30+ Android phone manufacturers to get them to cease production or innovate.

One last curious outcome regarding the patents transferred to HTC from Google: Can Apple argue that those particular patents have no place in this trial as HTC cannot show that Apple harmed them in any way by not abiding by the patents in the past?? I'm just now sure how that may play out.

 

[bearcatrp]

Apple doesn't sell my personal information

No, they just monitor your location without your consent, let developers introduce apps that's steal your information (angry birds for one) for them to sell. Yeah, apple wouldn't do anything against the consumer, cough cough.

If HTC legally owns these patents, then pay up apple. No different than apple going after other companies for patent violations.

 

[Oletros]

OMG, again htc crap is trying to beat apple ambits own a game don't they understand apple invented the smartphones etc and they are copying, how in the world can they lawsuit apple when these are all apple ideas go Apple and boo htc yiu guys copy but also make your products crap!!!!!

Yeessss, Apple invented smartphones etc being etc all the universe

 

[whooda4]

If I may try to guess, nobody created more jobs than IBM/MS. Then you can also try checking this list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_employees

That list is old, the us postal service is not making any money and has not for a couple years.

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all i can say is that i'm glad for apples involvement in the phone industry, other wise id still be paying 5 bucks for 1mb of data ^^

I have had unlimited data since I went to sprint in 05 or 06. You just had a ****** plan

 

[vrDrew]

Apple just paid a lot of money to obtain thousands of Nortel patents. It remains to be seen if they only use them for defensive purposes.

Which means they have the potential to act like a patent-troll. Unlike HTC, which - by filing suit on a patent it has only owned for six days - already has. Apple has, so far, only sued on IP it either developed itself, or incorporates in its products. A distinction, to be sure, but an important one I think.

Google is in a world of hurt when it comes to Android. Handset manufacturers are already paying royalties to Microsoft for Android-infringing patents. The Oracle case keeps getting uglier and uglier. (Google has been trying, in vain, to keep damning internal e-mails out of the public record.) Its very hard to see a resolution that doesn't involve either fairly steep licensing fees paid to various IP holders and/or major revisions to Android that will remove a lot of the user functionality from the OS.

Google took shortcuts when it came to developing Android. The executives involved knew there were problems, but they went ahead - bragging at every opportunity about the hundreds of thousands of "activations" Android was scoring.

But they a) aren't making any money off Android; b) just paid $12 billion to buy a second-tier handset manufacturer; and c) are giving away dubious patents to all and sundry. Not a pretty picture.

Of course, the Android drones still think that Google is going to somehow overcome all this, and spend the hundreds of millions of dollars its going to take to make a decent tablet version of Android, fix the junk-filled wasteland that is the Android App market, while simultaneously conquering the TV set-top business, launch a viable Social networking business, and who knows what else.

Call me skeptical, but I don't think they can do it. And I have a strong suspicion that Eric Schmidt is quietly counting his blessings, and his billions, for being out of the line of fire in the coming Android Armageddon.

 

[2992]

These companies are now-a-days like wild dogs.

 

[ninewaters]

Apple retaliation

Apple should buy Bling and Yahoo!, starting a search engine fight against Google !

Google is showing signs of fatigue in their search engine sectors.

 

[Ijustfarted]

gather your patents, winter is coming

seriously though, who started all these patent bs? I want to slap them

 

[MattInOz]

These companies are now-a-days like wild dogs.

Now-a-days you hear more about it, but I really doubt the behaviour is any different to the glossy past.

 

[callme]

So android is a copy of iPhone? what about blackberry and windows mobile? are a copy too?? all smartphones are copy from iPhone?? then i can say that mac os is a copy of windows just because windows came first? competence is not copy

Unfortunately Windows did not come first, Mac OS came first and MS copied it.

Try to get your facts right.

 

[ChazUK]

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In a surprising twist Google got criticized by many for their apparent inaction defending Android OEM's or Android as a whole on the past.

Fast forward to this defensive move to help and protect HTC and now Google are "pansies" for not attacking Apple directly. I think that this move gives more credence to the fact that Google are unwilling to use patents offensively. Call it proxy fighting as much said you like but Apple induced this proxy fight by going for HTC from the start.

Apple could step up and take this directly to Google but for some reason hasn't. Are Apple also "pansies" for not doing so?

 

[Juan007]

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Apple is the company that INVENTED the smart phone, and here you have a bunch of has-been second-rate losers going to court because they cannot win in the marketplace. Leeches.

 

[Ijustfarted]

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Apple is the company that INVENTED the smart phone, and here you have a bunch of has-been second-rate losers going to court because they cannot win in the marketplace. Leeches.

Karl Benz invented the car. Does that mean no other company should make cars? Just stop posting...

 

[Oletros]

Apple is the company that INVENTED the smart phone

Yes, before 2.007 there wasn't smartphones, people using them were dreaming in Matrix.

 

[rmwebs]

Both HTC and Apple are product vendors. They can't be patent trolls.

Sigh...go back and read again. I said by his definition.

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Apple is the company that INVENTED the smart phone, and here you have a bunch of has-been second-rate losers going to court because they cannot win in the marketplace. Leeches.

Might want to think about that a little...the first smartphone was released in 1992

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone

 

[PlipPlop]

This is great news, a company like HTC who brought some of the first smartphones to the masses are going to destroy the patent trolls Apple. HTC phones have always been superior to the toys apple make.

 

[divinox]

I believe Apple OS with graphic interface came first but others like Commodore or Atari (not the current one, Inforgames bought the name Atari and renamed itself) might have been before Apple.

Don't believe me? Klick here!

xerox parc. plain and simple. if you ever ask yourself, who invented this? but dont know. say xerox parc. more often than not, you will be right.

(at least more right than in naming something that came after it)

 

[adder7712]

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Apple is the company that INVENTED the smart phone, and here you have a bunch of has-been second-rate losers going to court because they cannot win in the marketplace. Leeches.

My father's old Nokia says otherwise.

This thread is being bloated by posts from rabid Apple fanboys. HTC has smartphones waaaay before Apple even sell smartphones.

 

[adztaylor]

This is great news, a company like HTC who brought some of the first smartphones to the masses are going to destroy the patent trolls Apple. HTC phones have always been superior to the toys apple make.

People in this thread really need to stop posting and actually read what the term "patent troll" means. Maybe when you're a bit more educated you can come back and post more sense? HTC and Apple are NOT patent trolls.

 

[mutantteenager]

I'm surprised I haven't heard a comparision between this and Coke Vs Pepsi. They are technically both cola drinks, and one 'came first'.

Now both are rival products, and neither shirks from digging the other one, but they compete for customers in the same space.

Whilst it's important to protect IP, unless there is a distinct case to argue, companies should just compete in the market and let the consumer decide.

Apple have consistently 'innovated' off the backs of others. I would liken them to Sony when they refined the radio. They in no way invented it, but changed that product in a fundamental way which then shaped the market.

I agree that HTC are probably acting in a defensive manner. Neither party is to be applauded though. It just means we'll get our products later and more restricted.

 

[divinox]

The multiple "Go HTC" claims are bugging me.

The bully analogy is ridiculous. Try saying that when everybody is copying answers from your test, and when you try to complain to the teacher, the teacher says "Now now nobody likes a tattletale."

Say you're an artist. You drop an album with a bunch of killer hooks. Like Queen's "Under Pressure" caliber stuff. You're successful and make money.

People start releasing albums with songs that copy elements of your songs. Lyrics, melodies, "ting ting ting t-t-ting ting. TING TING ting ting t-t-ting ting. It's a totally different song" kinda stuff, worse really, because they're actually staying in the same genre as you, not only copying you but watering down the things that make you distinctive.

Would anybody have your back? Or would people be saying "hey, competition is good, you need to play nice and share." Not exactly the fundamentals of capitalism there.

Seriously, this whole thing about claiming apple is a bad sport is tantamount to communism. Like Hitler. Godwin's law invoked, can the discussion be over yet? Kthanks.

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Clearly Apple isn't worried about the new 7" tab since the first one was such a smash hit. It's a matter of defending your patents/trademarks; if you're not diligent in defending them at every turn, you lose your right to defend them at all.

Apple clearly has no problems innovating. but if they didn't defend their patents/trademarks, the plagiarism would only get worse.

everybody else seems to have trouble innovating, so if Apple can enforce their patents and keep the industry on their toes, that's when we will see more innovation. The longer the competitors are allowed to copy, the less true innovation we will see.

but by all means. keep on saying that "competition is good" and that "apple is stifling innovation"

If that was true, Apple wouldnt have to bother - as they clearly are not defending them at every but, but rather in very specific ones.

BTW, do you consider all gaming consoles to be copies? Or at least in every generation? If not, why is that a different case?

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Going by this analogy, none of the OS (including Mac OSX) would have had a UI (mouse pointer based). Clearly all of them were "inspired" by Xerox.

Command-line smartphones, yay!