HTC responds confidently to Apple's patent infringement allegations

 

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Posted on 18 Mar 2010 at 12:45

Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC said it "disagrees" with the recent patent infringement allegations levied by iPhone maker Apple and is confident it can defend itself in court.

"HTC disagrees with Apple's actions and will fully defend itself," said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC, in a statement released by the firm. "HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible."

"From day one, HTC has focused on creating cutting-edge innovations that deliver unique value for people looking for a smartphone. In 1999 we started designing the XDA and T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition, our first touch-screen smartphones, and they both shipped in 2002 with more than 50 additional HTC smartphone models shipping since then."

Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the firm had filed a lawsuit against HTC earlier this month. The filing alleged that HTC infringed upon 20 Apple patents relating to the iPhone's user interface, underlying architecture and hardware. Interestingly, the lawsuit only covers handsets running Google's Android operating system and not the many Windows Mobile devices HTC has also released.

The handsets referred to in Apple's lawsuit include Google's Nexus One (which HTC manufactured for Google), along with HTC's own Hero, Dream and myTouch Android-based smartphones. It's quite clearly a proxy attack on Google itself, even though Apple stopped short of listing Google as a defendant.

HTC stopped short of issuing a formal response to each of Apple's claims, but said that one would follow in the next few weeks. The firm said it wants to set the record straight, so it looks like this is going to be a long and drawn out battle in the courts.

Author: Tim Smalley