Apple sues HTC for infringing iPhone patents

Apple filed a lawsuit against HTC this morning for infringing on 20 patents related to the iPhone. The funny part? HTC learned about it from blogs.

This morning Apple filed a lawsuit against cell phone manufacturer HTC in the United States International Trade Commission and the United States District Court in Delaware over 20 patents from the iPhone that Apple claims HTC has violated.  What is intriguing is that it isn’t just one phone that is involved, but pretty much all of the recent HTC handsets.  The list includes:

• HTC Nexus One
• HTC Touch Pro
• HTC Touch Diamond
• HTC Touch Pro 2
• HTC Tilt II
• HTC Pure
• HTC Imagio
• HTC Dream
• HTC myTouch 3G
• HTC Hero
• HTC HD2
• HTC Droid Eris

All Things D has broken down a list of the patents Apple is claiming have been violated:

• The ‘331 Patent, entitled “Time-Based, Non-Constant Translation Of User Interface Objects Between States,” was duly and legally issued on April 22, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
• The ‘949 Patent, entitled “Touch Screen Device, Method, And Graphical User Interface For Determining Commands By Applying Heuristics,” was duly and legally issued on January 20, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘949 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit B.
• The ‘849 Patent, entitled “Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image,” was duly and legally issued on February 2, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘849 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit C.
• The ‘381 Patent, entitled “List Scrolling And Document Translation, Scaling, And Rotation On A Touch-Screen Display,” was duly and legally issued on December 23, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘381 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit D.
• The ‘726 Patent, entitled “System And Method For Managing Power Conditions Within A Digital Camera Device,” was duly and legally issued on July 6, 1999 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘726 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit E.
• The ‘076 Patent, entitled “Automated Response To And Sensing Of User Activity In Portable Devices,” was duly and legally issued on December 15, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘076 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit F.
• The ‘105 Patent, entitled “GMSK Signal Processors For Improved Communications Capacity And Quality,” was duly and legally issued on Dec. 8, 1998 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘105 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit G.
• The ‘453 Patent, entitled “Conserving Power By Reducing Voltage Supplied To An Instruction-Processing Portion Of A Processor,” was duly and legally issued on June 3, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘453 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit H.
• The ‘599 Patent, entitled “Object-Oriented Graphic System,” was duly and legally issued on October 3, 1995 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘599 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit I.
• The ‘354 Patent, entitled “Object-Oriented Event Notification System With Listener Registration Of Both Interests And Methods,” was duly and legally issued on July 23, 2002 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘354 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit J.

In short, this is the type of lawsuit that could take eons to sort out.

In Apple’s statement about the lawsuit, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said, “We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it.” Mr. Jobs went on to say, “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

Engadget reached out to HTC for comment and got this rather unusual reply:

We only learned of Apple’s actions based on your stories and Apple’s press release. We have not been served yet so we are in no position to comment on the claims. We respect and value patent rights but we are committed to defending our own innovations. We have been innovating and patenting our own technology for 13 years.

Apparently no one had thought to contact HTC about the fact it was being sued before it got out to the public.

Patent violation cases are famously difficult to prove, and usually drag out for years, so expect to be hearing about this one for some time to come.

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