ITC rules: HTC violated two of Apple’s patents

CNET reports that the International Trade Commission has officially ruled that phone maker HTC has violated two of Apple’s patents related to iPhone technologies. This blow to HTC opens the door to a potential ban on imports of HTC products into the United States. Apple initially filed 10 patent violations against HTC, but increased that amount by five earlier this week. HTC obviously does not agree with the ITC ruling and provided the following statement:

HTC will vigorously fight these two remaining patents through an appeal before the ITC commissioners who make the final decision,” said Grace Lei, general counsel for HTC. “This is only one step of many in these legal proceedings.

As we know, Apple and Samsung (and Motorola too) are currently in a similar situation with Apple claiming multiple patent violations against the company. The twist in the Apple and Samsung case is that Samsung is counter-suing by claiming that Apple is violating Samsung’s patents.

There are only a few possibile endings if Apple wins HTC case. Either the two companies settle (with Apple taking home some more of HTC’s money – Microsoft already takes $5/phone and Oracle is looking for some more) or HTC stops selling Android devices. In all likelihood, if the ITC does not agree with HTC’s appeal, the two technology heavy weights will work out some settlement.  Cha Ching!

More on the patents below:

MacRumors follows with specific information on the patents:

These are the two patents the judge feels are being infringed: 

– U.S. Patent No. 5,946,647 on a “system and method causes a computer to detect and perform actions on structures identified in computer data.” 

– U.S. Patent No. 6,343,263 on a “data transmission system having a real-time data engine for processing isochronous streams of data includes an interface device that provides a physical and logical connection of a computer to any one or more of a variety of different types of data networks.” 

Both of these patents are at issue in the lawsuits between Apple and Motorola as well.

Related articles

• HTC buys S3 Graphics for $300 million, gears up for patent spat with Apple, Microsoft (9to5mac.com)
• HTC gears up for patent fights with Apple and Microsoft, buys S3 Graphics for $300 million (9to5google.com)