- Greg Lamm
- Staff Writer
The smartphone and patent battles sure have heated up this week, including this breaking item: HTC Corp. has filed legal action against Apple in a patent-infringement dispute involving technology behind the iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac computers.
The complaint was filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission and also in the U.S. Federal Court in Delaware.
HTC and Apple have a long-standing dispute over patents. Earlier in August, the International Trade Commission agreed to hear another patent infringement case from Apple claiming that HTC has violated five of the company’s patents on five of HTC’s smartphones as well as the Flyer tablet.
In mid-July, an ITC judge, in a preliminary ruling, found that HTC had violated two of Apple’s patents from a previous case. In that case, Apple had claimed the phone maker had violated 10 patents. Apple’s complaint was sent to the ITC in March 2010.
HTC’s devices primarily run on the open source Android platform. The North American headquarters for the Taiwanese company are based in Bellevue.
In its recent complaint, HTC says the patents cover a range of features built into Apple computer and mobile devices, including Wi-Fi capability that allows users to connect multiple devices, as well as processor communication technology that enables a seamless integration of a PDA and a cellular phone into a single device.
“We are taking this action against Apple to protect our intellectual property, our industry partners, and most importantly our customers that use HTC phones,†said HTC’s general council, Grace Lei, said in a statement. “This is the third case before the ITC in which Apple is infringing our intellectual property. Apple needs to stop its infringement of our patented inventions in its products.â€
Related TechFlash coverage: HTC’s Drew Bamford on patents and HTC’s relationship with Microsoft
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