The US International Trade Commission yesterday delivered a decision in a lawsuit brought on by Apple against HTC over four patents. The ITC ruled in favour of Apple for one patent and imposed an importation ban on some of HTC’s devices. The ban is set to take effect on April 19th. According to the ruling, “Notice is hereby given that the U.S. International Trade Commission has found a violation of section 337 in this investigation and has issued a limited exclusion order prohibiting importation of infringing personal data and mobile communications devices and related software.”
HTC has already issued a statement putting a positive spin on the decision and indicating that it already has solution to get around the patent it was found to infringe and avoid the trade ban:
This decision is a win for HTC and we are gratified that the commission affirmed the judge’s determination on the ‘721 and ‘983 patents, and reversed its decision on the ‘263 patent and partially on the ‘647 patent. We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it. The ‘647 patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon.
With precedent now in hand, Apple could now turn around and sue other manufacturers that use a similar approach to link actions such as dialing to certain data types.
Apple initially sued HTC over 10 patents but later dropped six of them. HTC has also counter-sued Apple in a legal battle that now spans several countries.