Apple’s Lawsuit Against HTC was ‘Warning Shot’ to Handset Makers

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The lawsuit Apple filed against HTC last week was just a public ‘warning shot’ across the bow of handset makers in an effort begun early last year to thwart the rise of potential iPhone killers, an analyst told investors Tuesday. Apple’s intimidation seems to be working. Rivals are returning to the drawing board to find work-arounds and a better response to the Apple smartphone.

“Lawyers are redoubling efforts to gauge potential defensive and offensive responses,” said Oppenheimer analyst Yair Reiner. Apple’s warnings “are meaningfully disrupting the development roadmaps for would-be iPhone killers,” he adds.

Reiner calls HTC – deeply involved in manufacturing Android-based phones – a proxy for the actual wrath of Apple: Google.

In January 2009, Apple COO Tim Cook stated the company’s early intentions to use its financial muscle to protect the iPhone’s IP. “We will not stand for having our IP ripped off and we’ll use whatever weapons we have at our disposal,” he said during an earnings call. Although enough to prevent LG, Samsung and Nokia to steer clear of multi-touch technology, by late that year Motorola’s Droid and HTC’s Eris were introduced with multi-touch.

Not to appear a patsy, Apple began contacting handset makers in January to explain it planned to protect more than multi-touch IP.

“It was ready to press its case along a number of axes that had made the iPhone experience unique, from the interpretation of touch gestures, to object-oriented OS design, to the nuts and bolts of how hardware elements were built and configured,” the analyst said.

Is the tough talk giving Apple more breathing room? It appears so. “Few OEMs believe that simply staying clear of multi-touch can, on its own, avert Apple’s wrath,” he said. “In the near term, Apple’s legal actions appear to have temporarily left competitors playing catch-up with their shoelaces tied,” said Reiner.

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[via Fortune]

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