“HTC Corp. Asia’s second-biggest maker of smartphones, can tweak the technology in its handsets to avoid a U.S. trade agency ban,” Tim Culpan reports for Bloomberg. “Dealing with the threat from Apple Inc.’s and Samsung Electronics Co.’s new devices may prove tougher.”
“Keeping the handsets on the market solves HTC’s immediate challenge after becoming the top selling vendor in the U.S. Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus and Apple’s faster, ‘Siri’-enabled iPhone hit the market within the last quarter, posing a new threat to HTC’s place in the $262 billion global mobile-phone market,” Culpan reports. “The Taoyuan, Taiwan-based company is forecast to post its slowest annual sales-growth and first profit decline since the 2009 economic crisis.”
“The ITC, the agency empowered to block imports of products that infringe the patents, found in Apple’s favor for one of four patents the Cupertino, California-based company alleged HTC breached. Apple’s so-called ‘647 patent covered a feature in which the phone recognizes a telephone number so it can be stored in directories or called without dialing,” Culpan reports. “The result, while less than Apple sought, marks its first victory in patent cases and strengthens the argument that Google’s Android ‘ripped off the iPhone,’ as the company’s late founder, Steve Jobs, once claimed.”
Culpan reports, “Apple also has civil patent infringement cases against HTC and Samsung.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]