HTC 4G patents brought up against Apple are probably valid, says US Judge

Apple recently won a landmark victory against Samsung when a U.S. court decided that Samsung must pay the company $1 billion in damages. However, this doesn’t mean that there is an end in sight for the patent wars. Rather, Samsung seems all set to sue Apple in case it releases an iPhone 5 with LTE technology.

While Samsung spared the new iPad, which also features LTE, HTC hasn’t been so forgiving. It had launched a case against Apple, alleging that in implementing LTE technology in its newest iPad, Apple had violated two of its 4G LTE patents.Apple countered the case by trying to prove in the court that HTC didn’t have rights over the said patents. However, the U.S. Judge looking over the case seems to have suggested that Apple may have to struggle in order to counter HTC’s patents.

This battle is very significant for Apple since if it loses the case against HTC, this could lead to a ban on Apple’s new iPad as well as iPhone 5, if it features 4G LTE. The situation had been anticipated in advance since HTC and Samsung own some key LTE patents between themselves. So if Apple makes use of LTE technology in its devices, it becomes vulnerable to lawsuits by these two companies.

Salman Latif
Categories: General
Tags: 4g lte, Apple Inc, HTC, patents