Apple Having a Hard Time Trying to Invalidate HTC Patents in a U.S. Court

[dgstorm]

Well, the Apple vs. Samsung case certainly seemed to end up rather lopsided in Apple's favor, but it doesn't appear that will happen across the board in Apple's other patent wars. According to a new report from CNET, the judge in that case, Justice Thomas Pender, seems to be taking a more fair and balanced approach. Just in case you forgot some of the details of some of the Apple vs. HTC (and vice versa) cases, here's the breakdown:

• In 2010, Apple sued HTC claiming several patent violations, and the initial ruling was in Apple's favor on two patent violations. HTC developed workarounds to bypass the patent violations.
• In 2011, HTC filed a counter-offensive lawsuit. Google sold some WiFi patents to Motorola and they used them to sue Apple claiming they violated these patents. HTC was asking for an import ban of Apple's line of Macs, iPads, iPods, iPhones, and other Wi-Fi enabled devices.
• Also, earlier this year, HTC scored a major victory in its defense against Apple in the U.K., where a judge ruled that three of the four Apple patents they were suing HTC on were invalid, and that the fourth was simply not being infringed.

So now we come to another separate case where Apple is being sued by HTC. HTC accused Apple of infringing on two 4G technology patents. If the court rules in favor of HTC, it could lead to an import ban on 4G enabled Apple devices including the new iPad, and the iPhone 5 which is set to launch soon (since it is likely to include the same 4G tech that is in the current iPad). Apple argued that the case should be thrown out because HTC's patents aren't valid. Justice Pender has made it clear that this he is unlikely to be convinced of this. In reference to determining whether a patent should be issued, there are several quotes from him (in no particular order), "Clear and convincing means something to me. I have to be pretty darn certain a U.S. patent is invalid. I don’t care if they bought these patents to sue you or not. [The patents] are a property right."

This definitely makes it seem that Apple has an uphill battle to stave off this lawsuit from HTC. Additionally, some other statements that the Judge made are encouraging because seem to indicate that he keeps up with the mobile tech world. Here's a quote with some details,

Pender has already shown he is clued into the tech scene, asking Apple’s lawyers whether the September 12 event is, indeed, to launch a new LTE-enabled iPhone. “It will be thinner and the screen bigger?” he asked lawyer Michael McKeon, pointing out “that’s what the blogs are saying.”

Well, at least it's nice to see that some of the Apple vs. "the world" lawsuits are in reasonable hands.

Thanks for the tip, WERA689!

Source: SlashGear

 

[MA83]

I like him!

 

[tazz3]

Oh boy apple dont know when to quit.i hope they throw this out..

 

[Lanos4Sale]

Apple don't know when to quit? This article is about HTC suing Apple!