Apple has filed a lawsuit against Taiwanese manufacturer HTC, citing 20 patent infringements including UI and hardware as well as architectural design.
Apple has filed suit in the US District Court, as well as the US International Trade Commission (ITC): the latter presumably in the hope of blocking HTC from importing patent-infringing electronics into the USA, but the details of the offending patents aren't yet clear.
"We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours," says Steve Jobs in the canned statement from Cupertino. The statement goes on to point out that Apple "ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s" and "reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s" - just in case anyone had doubts about who was the most innovative company.
HTC has its own user interface, TouchFlo, which is used across its own-brand handsets, but Apple's beef is more likely to be about HTC's role in the production of Google's Nexus One. Earlier this month the Nexus One got a software update which enabled multi-touch, including an implementation of "pinch to zoom" - something much admired on the iPhone and well protected by Apple's patent library.
Quite where HTC is infringing with regard to "underlying architecture" and "hardware" we're not clear. HTC isn't commenting and Apple is mysteriously quiet for us as ever, but once we find out we'll be sure to let you know. ®
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/02/apple_patent_htc/
LOL apple must want to offset nokia suing them
its all a bit ridiculous really, Nokia are suing Apple and Apple are also suing Nokia over various patent infrigements.
HTC Statement: "We only learned of Apple's actions based on your stories and Apple's press release. We have not been served yet so we are in no position to comment on the claims. We respect and value patent rights but we are committed to defending our own innovations. We have been innovating and patenting our own technology for 13 years."
via engadget.
Double thread.
http://www.slashgear.com/apple-sue-htc-over-iphone-patent-infringement-0276357/
Click the link to read the entire story. Seems to me Apple is afraid of competition. They have been losing business to HTC for some time. "Pinch zoom" as they say, is a copyright infringement of Apple inc. ...hmmm, ya know on my new Toshiba laptop I can pinch my mousepad to scroll in and out of webpages, pictures, etc. Gonna sue Toshiba corp for simply improving of a great application Apple? Maybe if yall at Apple inc stopped thinkin ur the leader of innovation and I know u ppl r checking out other sites to see what great new inventions r being brought forth and not stealing, as u say, yet "improving" on the "concept". Improving on the concept \ stealing an inventors great idea. Whats the difference Apple? Its the same idea just produced in different ways. Can McDonalds sue another fast food company for having a chicken sandwich? NO! Its made in different ways with a few different ingredients to be personally a part of that company. Know the difference Apple. Buy a clue, I heard they have them on sale, "blue light special", lmao.
Don't forget the patent on sliding an image to unlock the phone. That cost them years of research and now everyone is just using their invention.
Just another thing that annoys me about Apple sometimes.
Just the the Internet Explorer integration into Windows. Microsoft get slagged left right and center for inegrating it into the Windows system, sayign it isnt fair on third parties...no one says anything to Apple about Safari...
MalekoUK said:
Just another thing that annoys me about Apple sometimes.
Just the the Internet Explorer integration into Windows. Microsoft get slagged left right and center for inegrating it into the Windows system, sayign it isnt fair on third parties...no one says anything to Apple about Safari...
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That's because Apple does not have a de facto monopoly on operating systems. Microsoft gets into trouble because it has. Competition laws generally state that, while having a monopoly is not a problem per se, it is not legal to use a monopoly in one market area to gain an advantage in another one. Thus, for example, it is not permitted for Microsoft to take advantage of its Operating System monopoly to gain an advantage in the web browser market. If Apple ever did control the same percentage of the desktop PC operating system market that Windows currently controls, they certainly would get into trouble for forcing Safari on their users in exactly the same way.
As for the current patent dispute, there is not the slightest doubt that Apple does have a patent on some of these technologies, and that other devices are in violation of those patents. Slide-to-unlock is one obvious example; another is the use of a proximity sensor to to switch off a phone's touch-screen when the phone is next to your ear. Now you could, perhaps, argue that the patents shouldn't have been granted in the first place, and that is presumably what HTC's lawyers will do - if they can demonstrate that the patented technology was actually in use elsewhere before Apple filed for the patent, then the patent will be overturned; but at first glance it looks as though Apple actually has quite a strong case (especially when you bear in mind that some of these patents were granted as much as 15 years ago).
Yeah, patents are a funny (and sometimes ridiculous) thing...
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Apple maintains they hold the intellectual rights to much of the multitouch gesture technology we’ve grown used to seeing included in modern smartphones, such as pinch-zoom.
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They have not.
People always get this wrong. I hate those moronic bloggers. Idiots.
Apple has no patent on multitouch gestures.
I advise you to have a look at what Apple really claims HTC is infringing.
Update
Update:
Full list of supposedly infringed patents (of which there seem to be 10, not the 20 Apple suggest in their press release) from Gizmodo:
The ‘331 Patent, entitled “Time-Based, Non-Constant Translation Of User Interface Objects Between States,” was duly and legally issued on April 22, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The ‘949 Patent, entitled “Touch Screen Device, Method, And Graphical User Interface For Determining Commands By Applying Heuristics,” was duly and legally issued on January 20, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘949 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit B.
The ‘849 Patent, entitled “Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image,” was duly and legally issued on February 2, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘849 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit C.
The ‘381 Patent, entitled “List Scrolling And Document Translation, Scaling, And Rotation On A Touch-Screen Display,” was duly and legally issued on December 23, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘381 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit D.
The ‘726 Patent, entitled “System And Method For Managing Power Conditions Within A Digital Camera Device,” was duly and legally issued on July 6, 1999 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘726 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit E.
The ‘076 Patent, entitled “Automated Response To And Sensing Of User Activity In Portable Devices,” was duly and legally issued on December 15, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘076 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit F.
The ‘105 Patent, entitled “GMSK Signal Processors For Improved Communications Capacity And Quality,” was duly and legally issued on December 8, 1998 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘105 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit G.
The ‘453 Patent, entitled “Conserving Power By Reducing Voltage Supplied To An Instruction-Processing Portion Of A Processor,” was duly and legally issued on June 3, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘453 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit H.
The ‘599 Patent, entitled “Object-Oriented Graphic System,” was duly and legally issued on October 3, 1995 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘599 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit I.
The ‘354 Patent, entitled “Object-Oriented Event Notification System With Listener Registration Of Both Interests And Methods,” was duly and legally issued on July 23, 2002 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘354 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit J.
Update: According to Engadget Apple have submitted over 700 pages of exhibits to support their case; HTC may have only just found out about this, but it looks like Cupertino’s legal team have been working on it for some time. They also list the named devices in the case:
Nexus One, Touch Pro, Touch Diamond, Touch Pro2, Tilt II, Pure, Imagio, Dream / G1, myTouch 3G, Hero, HD2, and Droid Eris
Apparently while both Android and Windows Mobile devices are fingered, the former are flagged up for running Android while the latter only get a mention thanks to the DSP chips they incorporate.
From me to Hitler [via Twitter]
@ceoSteveJobs: Seriously? http://bit.ly/ciXSrd McDonalds can't sue BurgerKing because they also have a Chicken Sandwich... Be a man
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So do we all agree APPLE sucks
Of course, always have. They're too "fruity".
Pun definitely intended...
My god shouldn't HTC have the patent for the original smartphone lying around somewhere they can come back at apple with? Funny though, the newest kid on the block claiming everyone stole their tech before they even made phones.
As if HTC doesn't have enough to deal with concerning Carrier IQ and the boot unlocker, now a pending court ruling in favor of Apple could stop importation of HTC phones into the U.S. Basically, Apple's complaint is that the Android operating system "borrows" from Apple patents.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57...nned-from-the-u.s.-faq/?tag=mncol;mlt_related
The article doesn't address the possibility of HTC developing its own operating system (long rumored and mentioned in this forum in the past day or so), but the proposal makes sense (no pun intended) in light of the possible legal ruling.
Htc has been around longer than apple in the phone business and holds plenty patents that apple can't touch. Apple still has Carrier IQ installed on some of their devices even though they claim they are not using their services. Android is open source and does not infringe on apples OS. Let them cry all they want, they couldn't even touch Samsung.
Sent from my HTC PH39100 using xda premium
Ok it is a simple fact that Apple is Very Very sue happy right now (Started when Jobs was Diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer as far as I have noticed). I mean hell they just got done trying to bury Samsung because "Apple sues Samsung again for copying the iPhone's design, this time in South Korea" etc. Apple came out with a statement after Loosing saying well Samsung could go around our patents by just making their phones look different and making them have a more cluttered UI. The general idea here is that rather than dealing with the changing markets Apple wants to have the market cornered and have No competition so they can charge an insane amount of money for their devices, at least that is how it looks to me with all their stupid lawsuits they have going on right now. Next they will start suing TV Companies and Cable Box Manufacturers because the Cable Boxes look too much like the Apple TV boxes. I mean really Apple needs to come to grips and just Deal with it.
I call bs on the apple, the patent (tapping on a phone number link in an email brings up the dialer wtf really?), the courts that ruled in apples favor and the itc too. Apple muster be paying everyone off. Apple makes some nice stuff but I refuse to every even consider their products till they try to compete fairly by making a better product instead of filing bs patents and trying to sue the competition until they go bankrupt so they can get away with selling 8 gig mp3 players for $300.
Real though data tapping omg who cares? Why in gods name would any judge think apple is seriously being hurt because offers such a minor feature? Right now everyones is just insuring that already crippled company is gone become of a multi billion dollar company has a stupid patent that was probably filed after htc phones already had the feature.
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Samsung had requested this voluntary trial in September 2011, in order to oppose Apple’s ongoing efforts to reduce consumer choice and innovation in the tablet market through their excessive legal claims and arguments. Apple has insisted that the three Samsung tablet products infringe several features of Apple’s design right, such as 'slightly rounded corners,' 'a flat transparent surface without any ornamentation,' and 'a thin profile.'
"However, the High Court dismissed Apple’s arguments by referring to approximately 50 examples of prior art, or designs that were previously created or patented, from before 2004. These include the Knight Ridder (1994), the Ozolin (2004), and HP’s TC1000 (2003). The court found numerous Apple design features to lack originality, and numerous identical design features to have been visible in a wide range of earlier tablet designs from before 2004."
[Source]
www.androidcentral.com/british-high...nizable-differences-between-ipad-and-galaxy-t
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That's good. All this patent trolling is getting ridiculous, and it ain't just Apple either.
But the details there, it just goes to show how vague they can make these claims. There really needs to be some kind of reform of patent laws, particularly in this part of the industry which is only just finding its feet. Everybody seems to want to exclusively own this new big thing. Sure the iPad was the first system to take the tablet idea, merge it with a smartphone OS and capacitive touch screen etc. and use it in such a way but it most definitely wasn't the first attempt at a tablet/slate computer.
This really isn't what Steve Jobs would have wanted at all. He always celebrated his competitors and the drive they gave his company to do better. If people just crushed any competitors which came up in their industry, power users would still be using BlackBerry phones...
I'm glad there is a court that sees through Apples BS.
I know trade dress is easier to defeat then bs patents but it is a nice start
I hope that this time Apple won't ask for Samsungs technology one month later...
http://www.lockergnome.com/news/2012/07/10/corporations-into-causes/
Either way, patent disputes have been going on for as long as patent law has existed. Corporations buy companies explicitly for the patents they posses, because patents are the new product. If you develop a new way of overcoming a technological hurdle, you’re almost guaranteed a buyout these days if you have the foresight to patent your idea. The rights to that idea are far more valuable than the products themselves (for some reason) thanks to the way the current patent system exists.
Apple has been called out for achieving an injunction against the Galaxy Nexus. This isn’t the first time Apple has taken legal action to protect its patents, and the reasoning behind these actions can be a much deeper rabbit hole than it might appear on the surface.
For starters, if you don’t defend your patent in one case, you may lose any legal grounds you have to defend it in another. It’s not like other companies aren’t suing to protect their own properties. Apple just happens to be the one that received an injunction.
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Pretty interesting article.
I can't see how they managed to get the injunction though. I could understand with the Galaxy S1 or the Galaxy Ace (they pretty much copied the whole design there), or even the Tab 10.1, but the Nexus barely even resembles an iPhone. But this is why Google bought Motorola - did anybody think Motorola had anything going for them, really? They just own a tonne of patents Google want. Sammy have been constantly trying to sue Apple at the same time, this has been going on for ages, just for some stupid reason they got an injunction here.