FYIJSYK: Apple vs. HTC…
If you pay much attention to gadget news, you probably heard a bunch of stuff about Apple’s lawsuit against HTC for all types of patent infringement. So what is the story? Is Apple justified in these lawsuits? Can HTC stand up to the onslaught of the Apple lawyers? What does this mean for HTC’s phone lineup? We’ll answer these questions in the week’s FYI, Just So You Know, but you probably won’t be satisfied with the answers.
What’s the story?
Apple has brought a bunch of complaints regarding patents that they filed over the past 10 years. Some are super technical and others are just crazy, such as using your finger on a touchscreen button to unlock a screen. Umm, how else are you supposed to unlock the screen?
Is Apple justified?
Hard to tell. Patents are always a weird thing because sometimes it is very legitimate: you find a new way of doing something that is revolutionary; think inventing a CD in the land of audio cassettes. On the other hand, some companies get a way with patenting things like “how to remember things by using black liquid in a tube and creating characters of of the black liquid.” So you just described writing words with a pen. Lame. But somehow those types of patents get through, but they still have to stand up to scrutiny.
As this case is reviewed, the court will have to determine what can stand and what will not.
What about HTC?
They will most likely be fine for now. The soonest anything would come of a lawsuit like this is about 5 years. In the meantime, unless it turns out HTC is straight up making an iPhone, it should be good to keep doing business.
A majority of the hardware that contains the allegedly infringing patents are actually Android devices and the functions are core Android functions. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should know that Android is developed by Google. Also, unless you’ve REALLY been living under a rock, you would also know that Google has more money that most of the planet, so defending its technology against Apple really shouldn’t be too much a chore from a financial standpoint, but as I said, we won’t know from an infringement standpoint for a long time.
This all boils down to the fact that HTC is going to have Google and Google’s money in its corner. Not a bad entity to have your back.
What’s next?
I would recommend busting out a nice, big bag of popcorn and settling in for 5-10 years of legal jargon, posturing, and losses and wins on both sides of the courtroom. In the end, I predict that there will only be one true loser: the consumer. They will get the raw end of the deal as licensing fees will increase costs or injunctions against HTC and Android will reduce competition in the market. Once again, the consumer loses again.
What are your projections of what is going to happen between Apple and HTC? Are you rooting for one or the other? Let me know in the comments.
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