Not all patent defenses against Apple are created equally, HTC has learned. A trade court told the Android handset maker its shiny bundle of $300 million S3 patents aren’t infringed by Apple’s iPhone or iPad, and just partially by Mac OS X.
The U.S. International Trade Commission ruled two HTC-owned S3 patents aren’t valid infringement cases while restraining the scope of the two others. While ruling Mac OS X were infringing about two of the image-compression firm’s patents, ITC judge James Glidea blunted the impact by noting Macs that use Nvidia graphics chips have an implied license to use the patents, reducing Apple’s ultimate liability.
While the ruling, if upheld, could cause Apple to rejigger some Macs to prevent an import ban, most importantly, no iOS devices seem impacted by the decision. This greatly reduces HTC’s bargaining power to get a favorable licensing deal from Apple. Tuesday, an HTC executive told Bloomberg the Taiwan-based company wants to “sit down” with Apple and discuss settlement terms.
The ITC had recently ruled against HTC in favor of Apple’s patent-infringement case, putting Android-based device manufacturers on notice.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
12 responses to “HTC Finds S3 Patent Silver Bullet Bounces Off iPhone, iPad Threats”
I just paid $22.87 for an iPad2-64GB and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $675 which only cost me $62.81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, GrabPenny.com
I just paid $22.87 for an iPad2-64GB and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $675 which only cost me $62.81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, GrabPenny.com
Stop spamming and piss off :P
I paid 54p for a pack of beef hula hoops. I just hope that the cow don’t sue them, as they may be infringing on the delicious tastiness of beef.
Just tried a bag of sweet chilli hula hoops and they where very nice too.
I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. :-)
I just paid your momma $20 to clean my toilets with the same mouth she kisses you with