back to article Apple flings patent lawsuit at HTC (again)

Apple has ratcheted up its attack on Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC, filing a second patent-infringement complaint that, if successful, could bar HTC products from being imported into the US. The complaint was filed with US International Trade Commission (USITC) on Friday, Bloomberg reports, and was revealed in a brief …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.

Page:

  1. cnapan
    Pint

    HTC: Has demonstrated innovation, therefore a target

    HTC is one of the thorns in the side of Apple, because it produces products which give an experience which shows Apple's products a trick or ten.

    Therefore it must be crushed!

    I like HTC's products. They give me a good alternative to the world of Apple, and anything that helps keep itunes out of my life is a good thing.

    1. teknopaul

      wot no widgets

      here here, Apple is not the market leader in phone tech these days, perhaps they can win a law suit to prove they were.

      1. Rob
        Headmaster

        sorry, slight correction...

        ... Apple has never been the leader in phone technology, but they have been a leader in UI and design.

        Still saying that I have been buying HTC products since their debut on Orange with the SPV, so I'm definately a HTC fanboi.

    2. RegisterThis

      Plus HTC Sense attacks Apples UI USP

      The common criticisms of Android are those of fragmentation, and ironically, lack of differentiation!

      Of all those in the Android camp, HTC is the one pushing the boundary the most with respect to 'skinning' and changing the Android experience into something unique (and fragmented!). I don't know if I have just noticed it, but HTC is really using 'sense' in all sorts of taglines and contexts to push themselves as providing an intelligent and adaptive user experience where the phone knows what you want.

      HTC is changing the UI agenda slowly from 'intuitive' (i.e. you know just how to do it), to 'sensible' (i.e. it knows what you want). This is what Apple is scared of: they have had the monopoly of user experience so far and it has been their USP and 'sense' is a direct attack on 'it just works simplicity'.

  2. Stephen Gray

    Do Yanks do anything else?

    Litigate, litigate, litigate. Fanbois will buy Apple products because they like them, personally I'm ambivalent about their products, but they are starting to piss me off with ridiculous and frankly pointless lawsuits.

    1. Philip Lewis
      Headmaster

      Copy --> Litigate

      Copy, copy, copy. Fanbois will buy Apple products because they like them, personally I'm ambivalent about their products, but I like the fact that they are finally taking the Asian copy-cat manufacturers to task about their blatant infringment of patents. The Asians think intellectual property rights don't apply to them (live in Asia for a while and you will understand), and I applaud Apple for hammering them in the courts and international trade organisations.

      1. Bumpy Cat
        Stop

        @Copy --> Litigate - nothing new there

        Every market dependent on IP was previously the filthy pirates with no respect for IP. Europe did it, then the US - now they fanatically defend the concept of IP. Japan and then Korea copied IP freely*, but now they are both strong defenders of IP while Taiwan and China are the current thieves. In a decade or two it will be Vietnam and the Philippines doing the stealing while Taiwan and China fight to defend it.

        The greater problem here is that many of these patents are broken. They're too broad, too obvious, or have prior art, and to outside observers in the industry it looks ludicrous.

        * snigger

      2. karolbe

        HTC

        Actually HTC has longer history of producing smartphones than Apple...

    2. Daniel 1

      Truth is, I suspect everyone else in the market is "Quietly Ebullient" about it

      As a Device Manufacturer, rather than a badge-engineering shop, HTC is the most independent (and therefore least-liked, by the other players) in the existing market after Apple itself. There will be few at Samsung, or the Foxconn customers, who would risk what Apple is doing, but few who will be sorry to see it happen. Frankly HTC now appears to be feared by most others concerned.

      Myself, I admire Cher Wang, her company, its products, and its ambitions. The research going on in at the North Carolina site could yet yield results that its competitors end up having to license from it, just to compete, while the Seattle Software shop is making one of the best Android interfaces going. If anyone stands out as a potential 'fourth player', in its own right, then at present I'd say it was HTC - given that both current contenders for number three status, are in serious danger of sliding into irrelevance, anyway.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Really makes me wonder

    How much of that price tag for all these widgets and gizmos that we collect go back to pay for legal fees.

  4. NoneSuch Silver badge
    Devil

    I am not commenting.

    If I did it would never get through the moderators and posted because of the language I would use.

    I bought an HTC Android after comparing feature sets and looking at the way it operates in comparison with Apple. With an HTC I get multiple choices in "App Stores". With Apple I get one.

    Apple lost against Microsoft in court way back for 'stealing' Apples GUI. That precedent alone invalidates a third of the lawsuit against HTC. The remaining 2/3's is based on patents that should never have been granted. Keep pushing Apple. One day the Supreme Court will trash your "patents" in the way they should have been squashed by the Trade and Patent Office when they were applied for. One day (one hopes) common sense will rule again.

    1. Ralthor
      Happy

      I applaud.....

      ....your optimism.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Why only Apple can't have patents?

      HTC also has patents and has also filed complaints against Apple. Now that it officially owns S3 it may even have stricken gold because Apple apparently needs two of S3's patents according to an ongoing ruling.

      Just wondering if that "common sense" world you suggest would be one sided - without Apple's patents because you have a declared vested interest in HTC winning - or if you are suggesting some ideal - peace and love - world without patents at all be it from HTC, Apple, etc.

      If it's the latter then do share the stuff your smoking good man.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Devil

        It does not work this way

        The S3 patents are already acknowledged and licensed by everyone who is doing something graphics related out there. This makes them different from the huge piles of patent ammunition kept for lobbing at each other in a courtroom. Even Intel licenses these (though it is on the cheap as it is cross-licensing).

        So most likely Apple already has a license and can "Smile and wave, smile and wave".

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Stop

        US Patents

        Apple gets US patents granted for things that have been open industry standards (or non-patent protected designs) for years. The iOS interface is a rip-off of Notes "chiclets" that have been around for 20 years, yet they got a patent for it because it's on a phone.

        Apple should be careful where they tread - they are as guilty of the non-competitive practices they complained (and litigated) that Microsoft were found guilty of over ten years ago. As has been shown, the other players a lining as a united defense against the corrupt US Patent system and Apple's use of what should be invalidated patents to scare off competition.

    3. Peter Murphy
      Stop

      I don't trust the current US Supreme Court to be sensible on anything...

      ... patents or otherwise. Many of their cases seem to be settled 5-4 as "Big Corporation GOOOD! Consumer BAAAD!" It's like they set out to be... not conservative per se, but _anti-egalitarian_.

      How does that work on Big Corporation versus not-so-Big Corporation?

      1. Vic

        Re: I don't trust the current US Supreme Court

        > How does that work on Big Corporation versus not-so-Big Corporation?

        Not relevant.

        What we have here is American corporation versus Not-American Corporation.

        Place your bets...

        Vic.

  5. Gil Grissum
    Pint

    What a joke

    Or could it be that The EVO 3D so thoroughly kicks the iPhones can that the only way they can compete is with a patent infringement lawsuit? How bout innovating for a change, Apple. Not everyone is your fan boy and these lawsuits won't win you new fan boys.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The article forgot to mention

    That HTC now owns S3, which previously filed 2 patent suits with ITC against Apple some time ago and whose legal cases where "ITC investigation of S3's complaint against Apple issued a notice of a final initial determination, according to which Apple was deemed to infringe two valid S3 patents."

    This is from the FOSS Patents blog. So we can go on and on trying to find who really fired the first shot. There's no good and evil players in this game, they are all the same.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    being neither an owner of a iPhone or an Android...

    why do most of the android phones look at least superficially similar to the iPhone? Who decreed that was the optimal size and shape for a smartphone?

    In the non-smartphone world we have all manner of shapes and sizes of phones - why do we not see the same in the smartphones?

    Apple in this case seems to be in the right - they came out with this design first. Why isn't there more variation from HTC?

    1. hoffmeister
      Stop

      Really?

      the Iphone looks very similar to the Sony Ericsson P800 with the keypad removed completely, the p800 was out 5 years before the iphone

      1. Tom 38
        Trollface

        really really?

        I think you'll find the Sony Ericsson P800 looks very similar to the Apple Newton, which was out 9 years before the P800.

    2. Craigness
      FAIL

      You're so wrong I wonder if you're being ironic

      The human hand and widescreen movie dimensions define the optimal size and shape of a smartphone. But whereas Apple only does 1 size/type, HTC has varied their offerings in both size (eg Wildfire, Desire, Desire HD) and form factor (eg Desire Z and Cha Cha). Apple didn't come out with these designs at all, let alone first. Only HTC has variation. In fact, you can even get a choice of operating system in HTC phones!

      As for the software, Apple has a boring grid of apps as the main way into the phone's functionality, all with the same size and shape of icon. HTC has widgets, differently sized icons and all sorts of different shapes (eg globe, bird, camera and torch shapes). Once HTC's apps menu is accessed it can be customised to display either as a grid or as a list. So again, the variation is with HTC.

      HTC has a neat, discreet notifications panel, with customisable notifications. Apple has copied this. HTC has a special menu for accessing the last few apps used. Apple has copied this. HTC always had wireless sync, Apple has now added wireless sync, The innovation is with Android.

      It's true that the apps being displayed in a grid and the settings being displayed in scrollable lists is common to both interfaces. But it's also common to the Orange SPV, way back in the day. Guess which company out of HTC and Apple made that one? But it was Microsoft which did the OS. The form factor of that one was dictated by the price, availability and performance of touch screen glass. In 2007 when Microsoft announced Surface, and Apple announced the less amazing iphone (which limited gestures to push, drag and pinch), this was cheap and accurate enough to make a phone out of.

      The one area where it seems Apple has a clear lead is propaganda. But technical and design innovation comes from all quarters.

    3. Stephen 10

      It's a valid question

      But I'd suggest you looked at the touch screen phone available in the years before Apple's iPhone, the format was already pretty well set, the only thing Apple added was an even thinner form factor (LG Prada not withstanding).

      It's an obvious solution and therefore should not receive US patent protection.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      how about...

      The Blue Angel, himalaya, Polaris, Artemis and countless more that HTC designed and sold that were about the same size/shape/form-factor? Not to mention the others that came with keyboards- including the large-screened (I.e. pretty tablet-like) HTC advantage. And what's this? The Advantage came out /before/ the iPad? Actually in the same year as the iPhone1 was released? Yeah, HTC clearly copied Apple.

    5. Eponymous Cowherd
      Facepalm

      One could ask....

      why the iPhone looks "superficially" like an O2 XDA (from 2002, 5 years before the iPhone).

      The answer is bleeding obvious. Its the same reason why a Samsung TV looks "superficially" like an LG TV and why a Ford Transit van looks "superficially" like a Renault Traffic. Can you work it out?

      Obviously you can't, or you wouldn't have made such a ridiculous comment, and your use of the boffin icon is laughable (well, I suppose there isn't a "numpty" icon, which would be more appropriate).

      1. ZootCadillac
        Thumb Up

        The O2 XDA

        That you reference is sat here on my table. Still in use. Apart from it being more like a small laptop in design, the swivel screen enabled it to be held very much like a candybar iphone. As you rightly point out, this was 5 years before the iphone. And in fact, in terms of functionality, the iphone at launch was very inferior to the XDA. The XDA did all that the iphone did at launch and very much more ( rear and forward facing cameras spring to mind)

        One other thing to keep in mind, the O2 XDA was just branded for that company. The manfactured name of this handset was the HTC Universal.

        HTC have been making phones that put the iphone to shame for years previously to Apple or any other manufacturer, be it android or windows, the handsets are technically superior years before Apple launches any of their next best gimmicks. These lawsuits never go anywhere because when looked at in the cold light of day it's easy to see, just by reason of timeline, who the 'copycats' have been.

      2. peter 45

        Icon

        I lament the passing of the 'Muppet' icon (actually I think it was a puppet troll, but i like Muppet better)

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Paris Hilton

      Rational response gets voted down

      I notice 7 downvotes for what is a perfectly rational and clear statement of an objective reality.

      Sadly, the comments section here is now a place for vitriol and worse, where reason, knowledge and observation are rewarded with the thumbs down. The Reg. comments section will soon have fallen to the level of The Inquirer, which is no longer visited (or written) by rational beings.

      HTC actually is not the worst of the Apple copy-cats, as they seem to have a foot in more than one camp.

      Dweeb

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Down

        Haven't you heard?

        Form follows function. That's why a mug from Tesco looks just like one from Asda.

        Dweeb.

        P.S. I've downvoted you but NOT because I think you are a whiny little bitch but because your comments are meretricious doggerel.

    7. Richard Jones 1

      Pocket sizes?

      Anonymous Coward wrote about being neither an owner of an iphone or an andriod etc.

      Perhaps the size of so called smart 'phones is dictated by the size of people's pockets, hands, handbags, etc.? and the need to fit the bits inside the case.

      Having said that I see no point in either device whatever size they are. My experience of the excruciating apple 'services' would mean that if forced at gun point to take one or the other I would take the Android just to avoid apple but that is another story. (Getting shot would probably be better than having an apple device.)

    8. Gil Grissum
      Mushroom

      I don't think so

      Sorry, but my HTC EVO 4G doesn't look like an iPhone. HTC Sense doesn't look like the iPhone UI. The screen is bigger. And the EVO 4G had a rear facing camera and video chat long before the iPhone 4. And if I "hold it wrong", it doesn't drop calls. And by the way, Apple doesn't make an iPhone that has 3D or any form of 4G network speed. So really, your claim is invalid, as is Apple's lawsuit.

      1. KnucklesTheDog
        FAIL

        Really Really R... you get it

        Google the Seiko Epson Locatio (you'll need to stop google resolving it to "location") from 1999.

  8. mzilikazi

    android phones look at least superficially similar to the iPhone?

    Are you sure iPhones don't look similar to a Samsung F700?

    http://gigabyt3.com/news/item/did-apple-steal-the-iphone-design-from-samsung

    1. chr0m4t1c

      Er...

      Not this one again.

      The F700 was previewed *after* the iPhone and if you have a look for reviews still knocking around online you'll find many of them comment on how much it looks like the iPhone. The dates on that website for the F700 are wrong by 12 months and can be debunked with a tiny amount of research.

      See here for Slashgear's preview from the *2007* CeBIT.

      http://www.slashgear.com/slashgear-at-cebit-samsung-f700-hands-on-154328/

      Not that we want any facts to get in the way of a good Apple bashing.

  9. Bonzo the Wonder Dog
    Thumb Down

    I don't suppose there's

    any chance of Apple being declared a vexatious litigant?

  10. sleepy

    Business is war

    Microsoft / Apple was a copyright case based on "look and feel", not a patent case. But Sculley had licensed MS to use Mac GUI elements for Windows 1.0. The case failed because of this prior license and because look and feel is not copyrightable. So in future it's down to specific, nitty-gritty patents (not copyright) if you want to protect your designs. So we have patent wars.

    Apple runs its business in a particular way, which allows it to move its customers forward over the long term, but requires a protected space in which to function. What they do is very different to simply making one or two gadgets. HTC and Samsung are gadget makers, in that they have no long term plan or structure, and design their products for a market environment over which they have no control. It's Apple who broke the power of the carriers with a spectacularly innovative product, leveraging government-mandated inter-carrier competition to create a direct relationship with users.

    HTC made reasonably popular smartphones long before Apple, but now they all look just like iPhones. There is no doubt they, like Samsung, copied flagrantly. Apple has to protect the space in which it operates.

    Bill Gates and Microsoft pushed tablet computers for a decade. Despite monopoly power, they were unable to make significant sales. It's quite obvious Apple didn't copy these tablets, and has no monopoly, but iPad is a huge success, which everyone is copying. Apple's method of working has repeatedly enabled it to rescue technologies that were going nowhere and bring them into the mainstream (eg USB, WiFi).

    Apple is effectively the industry's first farmer; the others are hunters who simply exploit the market environment. They will kill the farmer and steal the contents of his barn if they can. Just as farming was the way forward, allowing culture and civilisation to become what it is, the way Apple does business is necessary for similar progress in the wired world. So far, no-one else has shown the required commitment to give up hunting for farming. But they will, because in the end, farming leaves no space for hunters.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      @Sleepy

      Keep sucking the Apple nipple of holyness....that way reality will not affect you.

      As for " rescue technologies that were going nowhere and bring them into the mainstream (eg USB, WiFi)." WTF?

      You do know who helped design USB? two little companies called Microsoft and Intel; Apple wanted firewire....

      As for inventing, the iPod was a piss poor imitation of Creatives stuff, but the marketing budget was bigger than Creatives by some huge magnitude, so eveyone belived it was superior (despite being DRM infected).

      PS even the iPod / iPad, name was ripped off from another touch screen device, the iPaq!

      What Apple do better than anyone is create hype...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        I suggest that 'Sleepy' changes his handle to 'Dopey'.

        I think it would be more appropriate.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        @AC 08:50 GMT

        So you criticise Sleepy for making a couple of points and then....talk bo11ox.

        Regardless of who 'helped design' USB can you name a mainstream manufacturer who was installing USB as standard on their shipping products before Apple launched the iMac? Go on - name one. There was only one printer available with USB at the time and that had all the other connectors on it too.

        As for Wifi. I cannnot remember another company pushing wifi before Apple introduced its Airport system. Yes there may have been products around but no-one was actually pushing them.

        So two points to Sleepy - Apple did bring them to mainstream.

        And the iPod. "a piss poor imitation of Creatives stuff". Did it look like Creative's stuff? Therefore not an imitation.

        And "(despite being DRM infected)." Where did you get that from?

        DRM didn't come about until the iTunes Store opened. Up until then you ripped your own music to put on your ipod and unless you had some magic DRM fairy of your own the music (and the iPod) was not DRM infected.

        The name - get your facts right for heaven's sake if you are going to criticise. The iPod name is way older than the iPaq. Go on, look it up. Apple may not have owned it at the time but it certainly wasn't ripped off from the iPaq - it doesn't even sound the same!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Mushroom

          Sorry what!?!

          Sleepy may not be completely on the ball with their comments but you are clearly in a reality of your own.

          I do concede the point that Apple has helped some technologies become more prevelant but I definately wouldn't say they pushed them to the mainstream. WiFi was in the wild before Airport and currently is far more popular than Airport as a product. USB was in the wild before Firewire and is currently far mroe popular then Firewire.

          The commonality on the above mentioned technologies is that they were all there before Apple brough it's own copycat product to the market. They are also far less popular, Firewire being a good example.

          Sleepy's comments about the Creative products are correct IMHO, they did have superior techonology in their devices than the original iPod just like smartphones from HTC were far superior in hardware and functionality than the original iPhone when it launched. Apple has been for years in catchup mode technology wise, they were a company on the brink of oblivion at one point, so much so they had a capital investment from MS. Apple is successful in designing a case for a product, they usually fail miserably in actual hardware innovation.

        2. a33a
          Trollface

          What are the odds?

          What are the odds of (AC 11:45GMT) being "Sleepy" ?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Happy

            £1,000,000 says he isn't

            Want to take it on?

        3. JEDIDIAH
          Linux

          Fanboy silliness.

          > Regardless of who 'helped design' USB can you name a mainstream manufacturer who was installing USB as standard on their shipping products before Apple launched the iMac? Go on - name one.

          Intel.

          Intel was bundling USB ports on motherboards before fanboys thanked St. Steve for giving them no option except for a technology that had not fully matured yet. SCSI and ADB were perfectly fine. There was really no reason to discard them and force the issue.

          Fanboys love to conflate "strip everything else out" with "being the first to offer".

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            @ Jedidiah

            You have a point there but miss the poster's point.

            Intel were putting USB on Motherboards - but were Dell and all the others shipping finished systems with them?

            USB was launched in 1994 but I don't recollect seeing a USB port until I saw the first iMac in 1998.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Mushroom

      Ditto

      Ditto.

      Dweeb

  11. D. Suse
    Thumb Down

    Aggressive company = loser company

    Apple and Microsoft are quite the tag-team, taking turns attacking Google in particular and open-source and other hardware manufacturers in general. If this "sue everyone else" strategy is allowed to continue, soon they will be the only two IT companies left. Then, they can squander all of their ill-gotten loot in a final battle for mutual annihilation. A "legal arms race"; THAT'S real innovation at work. . . . . .

    Continuing to purchase the products of "corporate legal predators" like Apple and Microsoft is effectively condoning (and supporting) these anticompetitive practices. Consumers are certainly free to make up their own moral rules for purchasing products (for example, to reject doing business in any form with companies that show an anticompetitive pattern of aggressively attacking others). That way the "nice guys and girls" of the business community could be helped to finish first, not last.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Well good luck with that

      Unless you buy your phone made by Joe down the road (and even then) there will always be a "corporate predator" involved. Do you really think HTC (e.g. sued Samsung, even sued a US city! - Georgetown), Samsung (e.g. suing AU Optronics over patents, another two sided war) et all are nice guys?

      While the phone war is a grand scale (not surprising, there have been legal battles over phones since their very invention) and the more publicised, any large company will act like a legal predator, you just don't usually see it on the news you read.

      1. a33a

        HTC Sued Georgetown?

        I decided to look up this spurious claim of yours. HTC did sue Georgetown. Only this HTC is known as Horry Telephone Cooperative and NOT High Tech Computer.

        http://www.gtowntimes.com/story/HTC-sues

    2. Steve Todd
      FAIL

      Apple don't have anything against open source

      They are quite large contributors to open source development (WebKit and CLang spring to mind), what they object to are other companies who use OS to implement ideas that they have patented.

      With Android Google took a lot of off the shelf OS code, bent the rules on other stuff (Java for example) and set about cloning iOS. The original release of Andoid was closer to RIM than Apple. They then told the world "you can have this for free BUT we don't indemnify you against patent claims for using it". It's hardly surprising that MS and Apple go after companies that do use it.

Page:

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like