Patent disputes are never pretty, but they’re a fact of life in the tech industry. The latest is a faceoff between smartphone rivals Apple and HTC concerning patents for the iPhone, Enterprise Mobile Today reports.
At issue are 20 patents related to the design and hardware of the iPhone, with Apple accusing HTC of infringement and asking for relief from the International Trade Commission and a federal court.
iPhone maker Apple says that HTC, the manufacturer of a number of smartphones including the Google Nexus One, has violated a number of its mobile device patents and is taking the Taiwanese firm to court as a result.
In its lawsuit, filed today with the International Trade Commission (ITC) and in U.S. District Court in Delaware, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) claims that HTC infringed on 20 patents relating to the user interface found in its iPhone, as well as the popular smartphone’s “underlying architecture and hardware.”
HTC is the manufacturer of the three-month-old Nexus One, Google’s first entry into the smartphone market with a phone carrying its own branding. Google is also the prime mover behind the open source Android mobile OS, which powers a number of phones including the Nexus One, the Motorola Droid, and a slew of others — and which is widely seen as a chief rival to Apple’s iPhone in the booming market for touchscreen, app-centric mobile devices.
Today’s lawsuit marks only the most recent legal spat between Apple and another major phone manufacturer. The company and Nokia, the world’s largest phone maker, are already sparring in court and before the ITC over similar issues of patent infringement.
“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said today in a statement. “We’ve decided to do something about it.”
