“HTC, the world’s largest maker of Android phones, is likely furiously rubbing rabbit’s feet and sweating buckets in the face of a potential trade ruling Tuesday that could slam the door on U.S. sales of all handsets using the Google mobile operating system,” Ed Sutherland reports for Cult of Mac. “Experts already predict Android is in ‘serious trouble.'”
Sutherland reports, “The Washington, DC-based U.S. Trade Commission Tuesday rules on HTC’s appeal of a July decision that the company’s Android phones violated two Apple patents… a ruling against HTC could outright ban sales during the most lucrative holiday period, slashing Android’s U.S. marketshare from 25 percent to nothing… The impact of an HTC loss could be felt by all Android manufacturers. ‘It’s hard to see how any Android device could not infringe, or how companies could work around them,’ patent expert Florian Mueller said back in July, after HTC’s original patent loss.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Don’t steal IP.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dow C.” for the heads up.]
We all want to see Apple have some serious competition but not by IP thieves.
Google should be trying to improve on the iPhone so I hope for the sake of smart-phone users everywhere HTC are dealt a blow.
Come back with something better or something that at least doesn’t contain Apple IP.
I see years of this kind of stuff. I can imagine code ideas are hard to enforce.
If one build’s a business upon stolen property, he deserves to suffer the punishment.
100% correct!
umm , didn’t apple use Other’s ideas and work in designing & building their phone? LG released their Prada touchscreen phone waaay before the release of apple’s phone. You & I both know this list goes on and on and on. ” Blatantly Copying OUR Black, Rectangular Design is Just Not Right “…..rather childish, cry-baby behaviour, imo.
Experts say that?
I fear HTC has plain sailing then …
This would be huge, but I won’t hold my breath
Me neither. This just has the smell of “too good to be true”. I worry that Android phones have become such a big business that regulators will bend over backwards to justify their existence.
——RM
While I would love to see this happen I really hope it doesn’t until apple gets the iPhone on small regional carriers, until then android is the next best thing…
Ok, going to put this comment first before my main comment which will probably get flamed.
Apple; don’t actually do it. No better way to make yourself the worlds ultimate James Bond villain, even KNOWING you are most likely right about the charges against Google.
You want a monopoly investigation? Go for it, if it makes you feel better, but you don’t want that in the real world.
Instead, go for a really large settlement to license †hat code.
That will leave a very large sword of Damocles hanging perpetually over Googles head.
As big a villain as Google seems to be, you don’t want to create sympathy for them, and I predict that will happen.
I disagree, Google needs to be punished for thinking they can do whatever that want and just buy their way out of it.
I see the courts either letting HTC off with large fines etc.
or ruling against Apple…
They won’t force HTC out.
Just My Opinion though, Wish Apple would win and ALL Android was banned but that’s not going to happen.
Even if Android can get shut down, the annoying thing is that Google doesn’t loose much of anything but the phone makers would. See what happens when you partner with a thief?
You know it’s not going to go down this way, and that HTC really isn’t sweating anything. That obviously won’t stop Cult of Mac can portray it that way though.
If you’ve been keeping up with the issue at all on the FOSS Patent blog, you know that these things don’t work like a “slamming door”.
If or when it happens, the dubious Korean judge should hang her head in shame.
In the meantime Samdung and the friendly US Judge siding with this slavish copying company are going full steam ahead. No worries, they have a great judge on their side to allow the copying to continue!
Am I the only one who sees a tombstone in the #1 ad slot for ClearEdge5?
KILL ANDROID NOW!!!!!!
Time to act on the total nuclear war of smartphones against GOOGLE – not SAMSUNG or HTC.
WITHOUT ANDROID nothing comes close to iOS.
Samsung was under an agreement with APPLE to produce most of the iPHONE. SAMSUNG broke this agreement and choose to GO BEHIND Apples’ back and team with GOOGLE on a similar PROJECT.
that is why SAMSUNG needs to be sued…
GOOGLE ANDROID is not FAIR competition it was also STOLEN yet wisely altered. THE KERNAL of LINUX is also a DERIVATIVE of UNIX a smart copy.
Android can’t be killed. Google dump it tomorrow and it would come back since the source code has been spread over the planet.
Linux was never planned or built to be what it has become but thank god it has grown into a powerhouse. I do not miss the days of being raped by UNIX licensing fees one bitt!
Android will be killed; it will be killed by Oracle.
Android is built on stolen Java technology. Java is now owned by Oracle, after they bought Sun Microsystems.
Oracle, like Apple, does not seek license fees. Oracle wants Android dead.
Larry’s last gift to his dead homey…
unix raped you?
stick with your linux dude… enjoy it
but apple is not raping the world or you.
The tech world has been doomed by the rape, pillage and steal crowd in Japan, Korea and China.
Hell, who would be stupid enough to want to invest in innovation, when your ideas and hard work will be dissected and cloned before you can even bring your product to market.
Add to that dumb a$$ judges who don’t know their elbow from their a$$.
Only someone like Steve Jobs and his Apple team, because they doi it for the love of it.
Just look at the level of innovation that has come from all the big tech manufacturers.
0000000000000 M$ 0000000
Eh? I are you serious? Rape? The jingoistic nonsense in these comments is laughable. You make out that there is only one true way of doing things which is absurd.
If HTC have infringed then they need to be punished but they are not evil. They have innovated plenty over the years right back to the TyTn and have more experience pushing the smartphone envelope than Apple.
Apple have adapted and evolved other people’s tech also and now it is time for them to take things a step further and get back ahead of the pack rather than resting on their laurels. Calm down people.
I hope Apple wins this case, not because of any fanatical animosity towards Android, but to prevent IP infringement similar to what MSoft did back with Win95.