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Apple sues HTC for patent infringement (updated)

By | March 2, 2010, 9:15am PST

Summary: Apple announced today that it is suing HTC for patent infringement. While the suit doesn’t mention the Nexus One, it looks like Apple is feeling the heat from the powerful HTC competitor.

As reported earlier by ZDNet’s own Larry Dignan, Apple announced that it is suing HTC for patent infringement. The lawsuit filed concurrently with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and in U.S. District Court in Delaware alleges that HTC infringed on 20 of Apple’s patents related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware.

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2010/03/applevhtc3-2.jpg“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

TUAW notes that while the suit doesn’t specifically mention Google or the Nexus One, HTC manufactures the N1, which is eating away at Apple’s smartphone marketshare and is frankly, a better phone than the iPhone right now.

Did Apple just acknowledge that fact that Android is catching up (or even lapping) the iPhone?

Photo: TUAW

Also see: Adrian Kingsley-Hughes’ take and court documents (PDF).

Update: The complaint is embedded above. Some of the patents in questions are Patent Nos. 7,362,331, 7,479,949, 7,657,849, 7,469,381, 5,920,726, 7,633,076, 5,848,105, 7,383,453, 5,455,599, and 6,424,354.

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Topics

High Tech Computer Corp., Apple Inc., Smart Phones, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Jason D. O'Grady

Jason O'Grady is a journalist and author specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets and his PowerPage blog has been publishing for over 15 years.

Disclosure

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady is the creator and editor of O'Grady's PowerPage, which has been publishing mobile technology news since 1995. He maintains an advertising relationship with the following legacy advertisers on the PowerPage:

  • Amazon Associates
  • Google Adsense
  • Tekserve

    • Advertising on the PowerPage is brokered by a third-party agency (BackBeat Media) and he recuses himself from these negotiations.

Biography

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady developed an affinity for Apple computers after using the original Lisa, and this affinity turned into a bona-fide obsession when he got the original 128 KB Macintosh in 1984.

He started writing one of the first Web sites about Apple (O'Grady's PowerPage) in 1995 and is considered to be one of the fathers of blogging. He has been a frequent speaker at the Macworld Expo conference and a member of the conference faculty. He also co-founded the first dedicated PowerBook User Group (PPUG) in the United States.

After winning a major legal battle with Apple in 2006, he set the precedent that independent journalists are entitled to the same protections under the First Amendment as members of the mainstream media.

O'Grady is the author of The Nexus One Pocket Guide, The Droid Pocket Guide, The Google Phone Pocket Guide, and The Garmin nuvi Pocket Guide (Peachpit Press), the author of Corporations That Changed the World: Apple Inc. (Greenwood Press), and a contributor to The Mac Bible (Peachpit Press). In addition, he has contributed to numerous Mac publications over the years, including MacWEEK, Macworld, and MacPower (Japan).

When he's not writing about Apple for ZDNet at The Apple Core, he enjoys spending time with his family in New Jersey.

Talkback Most Recent of 10 Talkback(s)

  • Let the stupid legal battles begin.
    Where only the lawyers get rich.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Bruizer
    2nd Mar 2010
  • Why didn't I go to law school?
    Comp Sci is for losers sad
    ZDNet Gravatar
    T1Oracle
    2nd Mar 2010
  • HTC eating iPhone?
    Read the Fox (!) Business news link. It has Android (all varieties) moving, more than doubling share to a total of 5.2% of the market, while Apple shows a gain of about 1.2% percent growth to 25%. I do not own an iPhone, so I can not comment on the "betterness" of an N1 - but the numbers from Fix News does not support the "eating away" comment. In fact the article clearly indicates they think that RIMM, MS, and Palm are the losers here. Wishful thinking on the authors part does not equal a persons own reading skills I guess.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Jim888
    2nd Mar 2010
  • Well Android may not be beating Apple...
    @ this moment, Apple I think believes they will catch and become a serious competitor, so it is better to squash them when they are small.
    Just like it is easier to put out a small fire than a bigger fire.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    mrlinux
    2nd Mar 2010
  • HTC NOT eating ...
    Agree completely and I'm not an iPhone user either. Actually would like to see Android succeed, but only if legit .. and that's what lawsuits are about.

    The author and many posters on ZDNet carry a "conspirator - think the worst of Apple attitude." Writers have to be controversial are no job ... no comment on the others.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    781lc
    3rd Mar 2010
  • Apple is a Marketing company with no Engineering
    This is kind of like the child suing the father because the father violated the child's patent on how to have sex.
    Unfortunately, Apple has it in with the Media J*ws and the j*ws that control the court system so this fiasco might actually get serious attention.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    InsanelyLame
    2nd Mar 2010
  • Packaging is not an invention
    Perhaps Xerox could sue Apple for the Mac or Tomislav Uzelac sue them for the ripped off MP3 player, MS could sue them for making a half smart phone rather than the real ones we've had for years and of course their tablet is another rip-off.

    It is possible to fool some of the people all of the time wink
    ZDNet Gravatar
    tonymcs@...
    2nd Mar 2010
  • Packaging not, but the interface is obviously invented by Apple
    so the merit of the lawsuit is 100% there.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    DeRSSS
    2nd Mar 2010
  • No engineering? Don't make me laugh
    Apple has tons of patents, including almost 150 authored or co-authored by Jobs himself.

    Apple engineered Fire-Wire, mini-Display Port, SOC schemes like bridges for motherboard, recently A4 SOC for iPad, first ever mass-produced customizable battery for notebooks, rest pad in notebooks (in 1991), magnet power plug, multi-touch screens withou 500-1000 sensors and countless other things that HTC could never even theoretically imagined to pioneer.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    DeRSSS
    2nd Mar 2010
  • Where have I seen that before?
    Oh yeah that interface is just like my Wii! And the Browser is Webkit based... Apple didn't invent anything, they took a Wii and made it portable!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Peter Perry
    2nd Mar 2010

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