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HTC Ready For Apple Patent War

Posted by samzenpus on from the one-bad-apple dept.

chrb writes "The BBC have an interview with HTC CEO Peter Chou. Last week, a judge at the International Trade Commission found that HTC had violated two of Apple's patents. HTC shares fell 7% on the news. Chou predicts that HTC will win an appeal against the ITC finding in December. He also reveals that HTC is preparing to fight back; it will soon acquire an extra 235 patents from its takeover of S3 Graphics — including two that Apple has already been found guilty of infringing."

11 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. ...Huh. by JustAnotherIdiot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While I do hope Apple loses this patent troll suit...

    "it will soon acquire an extra 235 patents from its takeover of S3 Graphics"

    ...I really hope HTC doesn't become tomorrow's patent troll.

    --
    What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
    1. Re:...Huh. by Nerdfest · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you'd like to help out against Apple (on a different matter), the W3C is looking for prior art on a couple of Apple patents.

    2. Re:...Huh. by jader3rd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...I really hope HTC doesn't become tomorrow's patent troll.

      I think of patent trolls as those who don't produce anything (or anything of perceptible market value), yet sue over the fact that they hold a patent. HTC is actually producing products.

  2. Chess with patents? by Rambo+Tribble · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What a tangled game; what an impediment to society.

  3. Ready for War or Negotiation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    (Posting as AC because I'm at work and I don't log into websites from work...)

    According to Bloomberg, HTC is ready to negotiate with Apple. Now, I know that's not as exciting as "HTC Ready for Apple Patent War" because there's just so much sensationalism in that, but why let facts get in the way of sensationalism, right?

  4. anti-competition by SkunkPussy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How about we compete on innovation instead of on ability to lock a competitor out of a market?

    --
    SURELY NOT!!!!!
    1. Re:anti-competition by chrb · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's what Mr. Chou wants: "We all have been living in this village for a long time, making smartphones. But one day this powerful man came in and said I invented this world, this world is mine. I don't think so. We have been making smartphones before the iPhone. This world belongs to all and nobody has a right to ask other people to leave. What it means is we don't want to copy anyone, we want to be a premium product. This world, this market is very big... is for all of us. Nobody should tell other people to leave and we should compete in the market place, let consumers decide... rather than in court."

  5. Re:Obviously by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Didn't you get the memo? Steve Jobs personally invented every aspect of personal computing, 13-proton nuclei, and the physical property of capacitance. HTC, by contrast, is definitionally incapable of doing anything except copying American Innovations...

  6. The problem is... by trum4n · · Score: 4

    If any of these were my patents, the judge would tell me to pissoff, and apple would keep using them for free. Then they would re-patent them, like they did with multitouch, magically have no prior art, then i would be sued for infringement.

  7. Another round by Quila · · Score: 3, Informative

    Apple paid the lion's share for the 6,000 Nortel patents purchased by the Apple/MS/RIM consortium.

    And much of that isn't software patents and such, it's hard-core telecommunications patents, including many covering LTE.

  8. This American Life - "When Patents Attack" by rcb1974 · · Score: 4, Informative

    NPR just aired a great story about the problems with some patents including software patents. It is nice to hear this stuff in mainstream media because it means more people are getting informed. That will hopefully result in more action to clean up this mess. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack Check it out.