If you are a follower of the legal battles Apple is entwined in you might know that the US International Trade Commission came down on Apple’s side regarding two patent infringements against HTC and their Android smartphones the other day, the next step in which is for HTC to mount an appeal against the decision.
And according to an article over on the Wall Street Journal, HTC isn’t about to give up and crawl off defeated and let Apple have it all their own way, with the CFO of HTC, Winston Yung saying, “now the course of action is to appeal, we believe we have a very strong case, the attorney agrees with us, and therefore we will appeal.”
A course of action, which naturally should have been expected, although apparently some analysts have said that preliminary ITC rulings are rarely overturned but apparently HTC could have a chance in the appeals.
Yung went on to say that HTC has not ruled out pursuing other types of solutions, and said, “if the parties want to talk, we can talk anytime…I think in cases like this, you should keep in touch.”
Over the weekend HTC apparently put out a statement stating they had “alternate solutions” to the two patent infringements, with Yung claiming the HTC believes they can find a tech workaround to avoid violating the patents the ITC have ruled upon.
Furthermore, Yung says that HTC hasn’t made any provisions for royalties and states “We have no plan to change our policy or specific numbers at this point…[thus far there has been] no effect on our profit and loss balance sheet.”
The word is HTC already forks out a considerable amount to Microsoft for use of their patented tech in HTC Android handsets, a hefty sum that word has it is more that Microsoft pulls in from their own Windows Phone platform.
No doubt even though the ITC has ruled that HTC infringes on two of Apple’s patents, this particular legal battle still has a long haul to go through before it is finally over, whether the result of that battle will inflict harsh damage to either party in the future remains to be seen, but for now it appears that Apple is getting their own way.