Apple sues HTC again

Fresh from battling with Samsung and Amazon, it looks like Apple is out for more blood. The Cupertino-based company has filed another lawsuit against the company it tried to take down earlier this year – HTC. According to reports Apple is targeting over a dozen HTC Android smartphones and the HTC Flyer tablet. Apple is aiming to block the sales of those Android devices it claims are infringing on Apple’s patents.

The patents in question are the same ones that are used in another complaint against Samsung – patents for scrolling operations, programmable tactile touch-screen displays, a double-sided touch-sensitive panel, a patent for scrolling, zooming and rotating content on a screen, and one that concerns portable computers.

While the descriptions of the patents sound pretty generic (doesn’t every smartphone do all those things now?), Apple might have a strong case against the Taiwanese OEM due to the fact that the latter doesn’t have a strong portfolio of patents to rely upon in this legal battle. However HTC has mentioned that it will continue to “vehemently deny all of Apple’s past and present claims against it and will continue to protect and defend its own intellectual property as it has already done this year.”

While we know it is a right to defend your patents – after all why bother patenting an idea if you’re not going to fight to keep it, but at the rate Apple is going after everybody, it sure sounds like it wants to be the only smartphone manufacturer left standing when the dust settles. What do you think of the patent wars going on right now?

George Wong
Categories: Apple, Cellphones
Tags: Apple Inc, HTC, lawsuit, Legal, Patent, sue