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Via Files Suit Against Apple
crookedvulture writes "Add chipmaker Via to the list of companies filing legal suit against Apple. Via owns a number of fundamental technology patents inherited from Centaur, and it's already forced Intel to grant an ongoing x86 license. Via also has a vested interest; CEO Wenchi Chen is married to the head of HTC, which Apple sued for patent infringement last March."
Wen Chi Chen founded VIA Technologies in 1983, and has run the company for almost 30 years, building it from nothing into a billion dollar company that is now the world's largest independent manufacturer of motherboard chipsets. He is the Taiwanese equivalent of Steve Jobs. Under his stewardship VIA successfully defended a patent attack from Intel that led to 11 different court cases in 5 different countries (sound familiar?). The investors don't care about the family connection - they care about profit. And if VIA's patent portfolio was strong enough to convince Intel to settle, then what makes you think Apple will be any different? Intel holds many, many patents on fundamental CPU technologies; how many do you think Apple holds?
Except for the fact that they are the market leader. Name *ONE* mobile company doing better than Apple right now.
They've only sued over things they believe they own, and the courts have agreed with them. They aren't trying to stop HTC or Samsung from making their own products, but they *are* trying to stop them from making products that are too much a clone of Apple's products.
There are plenty of ways to make a multitouch phone and multitouch tablet. Apple chose their style. It's up to everyone else to choose their own as well.
Except that at the OS level Android has eclipsed iOS with 2x the marketshare in 1Q11.
As for phone manufacturers: Nokia (25%), Samsung (16%), and LG (5.6%) are all ahead of Apple (3.9%) in market share.
As for styling, there's only so much you can do with a rectangular design with rounded corners.