Creative is a company that some of you guys might not have heard from in recent years. For those unfamiliar, Creative is a company known for their SoundBlaster lineup of speakers, headphones, and sound cards, and recently it looks like the company is trying to ban as many Android phones as possible from being sold in the US.The company has filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) in which they allege that there are seven Android brands that have violated its patents. The companies in question are BlackBerry, HTC, LG, Lenovo/Motorola, Samsung, Sony and ZTE. Creative claims that the patent they violated imitates their hierarchical menu system for media playback.
According to the ITC, “The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) has voted to institute an investigation of certain portable electronic devices and components thereof. The products at issue in the investigation are portable electronic devices, such as smart phones, with the capability of playing stored media files selected by a user from a hierarchical display.”
Assuming that they are successful, this would no doubt see many phones start being taken down from shelves, although chances are some of the companies mentioned above will be more than willing to settle just to get it over and done with, while some might choose to fight it.
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