HTC Infringed Apple Patents, Says ITC's Initial Determination 230
CWmike writes "A judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission has made an initial determination that HTC infringed two Apple patents, HTC said late Friday. If the judgment is made final, HTC could be banned from importing phones to the U.S. It's the latest blow to Google's Android operating system, which is being attacked by competitors including Apple, Microsoft and Oracle. The initial determination will now be reviewed by a larger panel of ITC judges, who can uphold or reject it. The two patents appear to be fundamental to Android, according to Florian Mueller, a patent expert. 'They are very likely to be infringed by code that is at the core of Android,' he wrote in a blog post. The same patents are also at the heart of a dispute between Apple and Motorola, he said."
Re:Patents (Score:4, Informative)
The first Blackberry phone came out in 1999. The patent was filed in 1996 and issued in 1999. I don't think it really matters when the first iPhone was conceived.
Florian Mueller a patent expert? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
WTH?, Didn't we already established in about every single article written by him that he is a paid microsoft shill trying to create FUD around android? Most of what he writes is BS, as has been proven again and again. I am not saying that everything that we writes should be regarded as BS, although I would ignore it because he already lost all credibility to me, he may eventually write something of value, but to call him a patent expert is just, well, it is enough to get me into rant mode and come post in an article that I should be ignoring. /rant
And I am very sorry for the rant, as I will probably regret it tomorrow, I am off to sleep.
Re:Patents (Score:3, Informative)
My WWIV BBS was auto recognizing and highlighting FIDO net addresses in 1991. My telix client auto recognized certain dowload types and could auto zmodem download with a simple keystroke, also 1991-1992ish.
A judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission (Score:4, Informative)
Just to be clear, this guy is not really a judge. He's just a bureaucrat. HTC has the right to contest his decision before a real Federal judge. Unfortunately, their imports will be barred in the meantime, so they might decide to settle even if they think they would prevail in court.
Apple Data Detectors (Score:4, Informative)
This article [miramontes.com] describes ADD, including what its developers considered to be unique and different from other approaches.
My take on this is that ADD did come up with some clever ideas in implementation that solved the particular problems they were addressing (focusing on simple problems and fast detection). It's clear that what's unique is the particular implementation, not the idea of detecting phone numbers and such. They cite lots of other examples of the idea.
So, there are two possibilities. Either the patent covers the idea (and thus is inappropriately broad and will be ruled invalid) or the patent is about the particular implementation, in which case it should be simple to implement in a way that avoids violation. In either case, HTC and Android will be fine.