“Taiwan’s leading smartphone maker HTC on Tuesday dismissed fresh patent infringement claims by US giant Apple as the legal battle between the rivals escalated,” AFP reports.
“Apple Monday filed a complaint against HTC with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) — which is already reviewing three other disputes between the two — over five cases linked to technology used in the iPad and iPhone,” AFP reports. “It has also lodged a suit in a US District Court in Delaware.”
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“‘HTC is disappointed at Apple’s constant attempts at litigations instead of competing fairly in the market,’ said HTC general counsel Grace Lei in a statement,” AFP reports.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We don’t know which is more ironic, Grace’s statement or her first name.
They always start complaining about how unfair things are right before the plea bargaining starts…
There’s no plea bargain; it’s a civil action.
I can’t believe you didn’t understand my poor attempt at humor Bizlaw… 😉
Wankers!
=:~)
I don’t know whether patent infringements have occurred here but this has to be the most ludicrous thing I have heard. If Apple rips off something patented by someone else, everyone is all over them and wants millions of dollars. Turn the tables and Apple isn’t playing fair? Give me a break! Statements like this just make me realize more and more that high paid executives don’t think before they speak and many possibly are unable to think for themselves at all. I just wonder who helps Grace put on her (his?) pants each day.
Yep. $8M over that playlist patent issue (they wanted about 10 times as much). The damage from Samsung’s slavish copying is much greater.
Yes, because stealing sales from the real developer of the product you are marketing is fair.
Asia’s answer to EVERYTHING is to “compete on price in the marketplace” because they don’t invent ANYTHING and build everything in sweatshops. If we are going to “compete” with these companies then, yeah, we’re gonna need to enforce the rules on these lying, cheating thieves!
Racist much? You obviously have no idea what has happened in Asia since WWII – and no one copies technology anywhere else in the world? You obviously do not understand the business model of MOST Asian companies. It is why Apple builds its products in Asia. Because MOSt businesses in Asia have very high business and work ethics. FYI – I am not Asian and I have done a tremendous amount of business in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore and China. I have worked with very good honest men and women. So, before you cast aspersions (if you don’t know that word – go back to grade 5), you need to actually do business in the environment. Here in Oz, we have a word for you – wanker. Nuf said.
As far as HTC is concerned, this isn’t the only product that they have been caught with their pants down regarding. They have just been caught by someone who really gives a fat rats about infringement. Apple and Jobs promised they would protect their patents. So, now it is happening. Cheers.
You learned of aspersions in 5th grade? Yeah right.
I think 5th grade is when he learned he had “aspergers’, and he got the two terms confused.
Yes… can’t help it if your education is lacking
PLEASE. Nothing Cleetus wrote was racist. The reference was about the “compete on price” issue and that oft times Asia is the haven where companies copy the intellectual property of others. This is a fact. That doesn’t mean there’s not hard-working honest people in Asia. But disregard for IP is a known and all too common occurance in Asia.
Jackhole much? If you don’t know what that means, go back 2-3 hours to the last time someone called you one and use context to figure it out.
Traditionally, I would agree with you that much of Asia takes a “price it lower” approach. A lot of that is because Asian culture is not as empathetic as Western culture. It’s harder for us to understand the user.
But, I would also argue that this is changing fast. I teach design methods out here in Asia and I see more and more Asians who ‘get it’ everyday.
Btw. I am Asian and I live in Asia.
Ok, in the alternate reailty this would be true. However, this is not the case. Fair would be coming up with one’s own solution. Something that HTC seem to miss. Instead look at a copy that suppose to be free and wedge it into a similar copied hardware. Strangely this is not apparent to HTC as being unfair. Then again, having legal action taken is an “unexpected” and “anti-competitive” by Apple.
HTC is saying you may copy our designs and sale it in the open market. So, China- fire up those completive production line with those ever so slightly modified HTC ish phone. Their is profit to be made and HTC would love for you to use their designs. Save you a heap of money so you can offer them at nothing for one and for a dollar. Because HTC loves competition.
Yea!! LOL. Let’s see how that works out!!
Hopefully both companies reach an agreement that settles the issues between them.
Of the Android handset maker’s HTC has been arguably the best, the HTC SenseUI is a nice interface over stock android. I find it very nice and easy to use.
Do you think HTC’s Android is the best because they just copied the iPhone more closely than the other copiers or are you just stupid?
yes, he’s just stupid.
Apple INVENTED the multi-touch interface. Before the iPhone, all phones had keys, none of them were touch based.
I think it is amusing that fandroids think that they can claim that its even plausible that Apple copied from android.
Do they really think we’re that stupid and our memories are that short?
Especially considering that the original Android was a rip off of the Blackberry OS.
HTC’s only disappointment is that Apple waited until HTC had made a sizable investment in producing iPhone knock-offs, before getting serious about “litigation.” Now it hurts, and they know they can’t win.
I do not think there is any disappointment of any sort on HTC’s part regarding Apple’s response.
These are hollow words being used in an attempt to portray Apple as the villan in the piece when in reality, HTC took a gamble that looks like has failed and hence is itself in danger of being exposed as the real villan.
If anything, it is an expression of disappointment at their own failure to avoid litigation particularly since HTC executives took a calculated decision to create a device that flies so close to the line in infringing Apple’s IP.
I say it was a clear and calculated decision that went wrong because Steve Jobs put the World on notice when launching the iPhone back in Jan 2007 that it was protected by over 200 patents. And that Apple have no problem in using litigation to protect its IP. The message could not have been clearer: copy and we will sue. This was not going to be a replay of the Mac OS feature-set being handed off to sloppy DOSsers to copy at will and thereby attempt to destroy Apple!
The HTC executive commissioning their iPhone-wannabe would have had to have been comatose to have missed the point made by SJ in this keynote. Or calculating knaves (or may be a bunch of utter blithering idiots) to have ignored his point as well as many subsequent statements that both SJ and Tim Cook have made about their zero-tolerance approach to IP infractions.
Apple is also under no obligation to launch litigation to anyone else’s timetable but its own! So what if it took a few years to fully research the matter before launching litigation?
Interestingly, Apple also takes a similarly hard stance against those who seek to garner ‘publicity through negative association’ as in the case of gizmodo acquiring a stolen iPhone and the (piss)artist who recently installed his spyware on Macs in Apple Stores…
This new Apple, re-born in 1996, does not tolerate mediocrity – internally nor externally!
conversely…
Apple is disappointed at HTC’s constant attempts at patent infringement instead of competing fairly in the market
Thumbs up for this comment.
Right On!! HTC are blind to their own actions.
In the far east, the concept of copyright isn’t really taken seriously. If HTC solely made products for use in their home country, that would be one thing, but making copies of Apple products to sell in Apple’s principle markets is an entirely different matter and will inevitably force Apple to defend it’s intellectual property.
If Apple didn’t defend it’s copyright, it would lose the protection that it offers. HTC’s lawyers are acting out of desperation, because they know they will lose.
Which is a big part of the problem with people who call for the demise of the patent system. Notice you don’t get innovations coming from China, South Korea, etc. You get copies. No one invents anything, because it is easier and cheaper and faster to copy what someone else invents.
That’s precisely WHY we have a patent/trademark/copyright system, flawed as it is (esp. regarding technology). Companies like Apple, Nortel, IBM, Microsoft, Motorola, etc. can invest millions in R&D and know that, if they produce something unique, they get to keep control of it and profit from the effort.
That’s just not the case in many Asian countries, and it’s why nothing original comes from there.
I’ve heard people claim that the patent system stifles innovation… but they never seem to have any examples of innovations from the companies they are defending.
Apple invented the touch interface. The idea that defending these patents is stifling innovation is ironic.
The purpose of patents is to reveal the state of the art, and *force* people to innovate, by coming up with something new so that they aren’t infringing on the patents.
What these people want is something for nothing.
A lot of hardware design innovations come out of Asia. They just get branded with Western company names when they roll off the assembly line. In fact, I doubt that many companies in the US do their own HW designs. Apple has to be one of the few.
But go ahead and make ignorant blanket statements.
“by US giant Apple”
What a difference from ‘beleaguered Apple…’
From too small to take seriously to so large they must be evil.
Haters need no excuse, they just be gonna hate.
Has Apple ever actually won any of the cases they bring? I know that they have won where others have sued them, but of all these App store names suits and all these copycat suits I have never seen one they have one. They have lost a couple that I have seen, but tell me who have they beaten and what came of it? I believe they should defend their patents, but things like AppStore and other wording suits just makes them look silly. Amazon won that one, but still Apple keeps suing others for the same thing. Maybe that is why the head patent lawyer is out, huh?
No, the lead patent attorney isn’t leaving because Apple didn’t get the preliminary injunction against Amazon (Apple can still win the case; preliminary injunctions are extremely difficult to get).
If you don’t defend your IP, you can lose the right to exclude others from using it. That’s part of our IP system, designed so that something which is deemed abandoned (not defended) can be used by others.
Apple is in the early stages of most of its patent litigation, and is still awaiting fully awarded patents from the USPTO. Time will tell, but I believe Apple will either be able to block anyone from using many of its patents, or force them to pay licensing fees, which makes Android and other phones more expensive compared to the iPhone (and less likely to see BOGO offers, etc.)
“We are disappointed in Apple’s at Apple’s constant attempts at ligitation instead of stealing ideas from other companies fair and square!”
Apple HAS to innovate because there are no ideas to steal…at least from the asian countries. In N. America, Apple buys ideas (Nortel’s patents for example).
I call BS.
In wwdc 07 SJ specifically said that iPnone is carefully covered by patents and that Apple will use them.
lol, what a crook…
so the copycats are crying foul? lol, that is hilarious, coming from a part of the world where patent law is just a suggestion.
MDN, I totally love your cheap shots! Keep ’em coming. This is far and away the most entertaining site on the web. If people want objectivity, they can… Well, I guess they can’t. Oh yeah, they can go to Paul Thurrott’s Super Duper Microsoft, lick Balmer’s right nut, Supersite.
I blame Android and Google for all this.
Samsung and HTC would not be so pervasive if they didn’t have a common, just-as-ripped-off platform.
Someone besides Google would have filled the OS gap if Android hadn’t been around. Maybe not quite as soon, or done as well as Android has been developed, but the handset manufacturers would not have just shut down.
Very true. I would also add that the OEMs like HTC had their backs to the wall watching sales dry up for Windows Mobile. They knew that Android was a patent landmine but they had very few options.
Htc: let’s compete fairly…..by letting me copy everything in iOS
different countries have different values. In Asian countries it is not unethical to be unethical. The inscrutable East!
Marco….your mom called. You left your meds at home again.
For a good read of the history of multitouch: http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html
Hey dude mcfarland!
I got all excited and checked out your link and boy was I oh so disappointed!
No mention of HTC anywhere!!
Apple scored 13 mentions and Microsoft 12. But Toshiba scored one and is the only company mentioned for the whole of that region of the world!
I was just posting it for educational purposes. Im not making any claims that HTC was involved directly with the invention of multitouch.
dude, it wasn’t a dig at you but rather, “HTC and the copiers”.
😉
I didn’t take it as a dig just wanted to be clear on my stance. Hell yehz.
Ummm, Grace is a he.
Great MDN take !
Can’t wait to see HTC’s sales decline after Apple gets the iPhone onboard with Sprint & T-mobile later this year.
Oh darn HTC. Your copy machine BIT YOUR ASS. The world will benefit from your bankruptcy. 😆
Let’s get some real competition in the market PLEASE!
Some exciting other important news…
A BIG BLOW FOR APPLE…
No rush to judgement in Apple v. Samsung!
The judge denies Apple an expedited case! 🙂