Apple and HTC finally make peace with 10-year licensing agreement

Both Apple and Samsung are still at each other’s throats in the courts, but it looks like as far as the beef that Apple and HTC had with each other, well it seems that it might have been put on hold at least for the next 10 years. In what we can only describe as a milestone, it seems that in “global settlement”, both Apple and HTC have agreed to dismiss all their complaints against each other under a 10-year license agreement. This agreement will cover both current and future patents held by both companies and while the terms of the settlement is confidential (unsurprisingly so), HTC told The Verge that they do not expect the settlement with Apple to have “any adverse material impact on the financials of the company,” which we can only assume is a good thing.

What this also means is that future HTC devices will be able to incorporate some of the features that Apple alleged they infringed upon, such as slide to unlock and universal search to name a few. If you can recall, it was a few months ago that some of HTC’s phones were delayed from entering the US due to ban won by Apple. The Taiwanese company had to compromise by introducing an update to their phones that would remove some of the offending features, which would then allow their phones to be sold in the US. In any case it looks like that’s all behind Apple and HTC now, and we hope that Apple will be able to come to a similar resolution with their other competitors like Samsung and Motorola.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, General
Tags: HTC, Legal