In a high-profile but strikingly limited legal victory for Apple, the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled today that HTC has violated only one of the Cupertino, Calif.-based company's patents.
The ITC--a quasi-judicial body that opponents of a Hollywood-backed copyright bill have proposed as a home for a new piracy court--said it would impose an import ban on some of HTC's products. But that won't take effect until April 19, 2012, giving HTC, Google, and other partners time to remove certain features or figure out technical work-arounds that don't infringe on the patent.
Taiwan-based HTC said today it will remove that feature from "all of our phones" soon, meaning the ITC's ruling (PDF) will have little practical effect.
Apple claims HTC's phones illegally use patented features found in the iPhone.
(Credit: Apple)
The ruling is hardly a complete victory for Apple: in March 2010, the company filed a complaint saying HTC violated 10 of its patents. In a preliminary ruling in June, an ITC administrative law judge found only two violations, and today's ruling narrows the violation to only one of the original 10 patents.
Pierre Ferragu, a senior analyst at the London-based Sanford C. Bernstein research firm, said "this ruling will represent absolutely no disruption at all to HTC's business in the U.S."
In a statement to CNET, HTC general counsel Grace Lei said: "We are gratified that the commission affirmed the judge's initial determination on the '721 and '983 patents, and reversed its decision on the '263 patent and partially on the '647 patent. We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it. However, the '647 patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon."
Another option for HTC would be to create a technical work-around that doesn't run afoul of the patent in question, which deals with "data tapping" techniques that automatically format documents to allow, for instance, a dialer program to pop up when a phone number appears
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