It’s a bad day for HTC and for Android devices in general, as I’m sure you know if you keep up with the goings on in the mobile space, Apple and HTC have been in a patent fight in the United States, and the US International Trade Commission has now rules in Apple’s favour meaning HTC Android devices now face a ban on US soil.
According to an article over on Engadget by way of FOSS Patents, the US ITC has now ruled that HTC infringes on a couple of Apple patents to do with formatting data such as phone numbers, in unstructured docs like emails and such that enables the user to interact with them, it’s far more technical than that but basically that’s it.
As a result, a ban on the import and sale of HTC Android based devices will come into effect as of the 19th of April 2012 in the United States of America, allowing for a transitional period for HTC before the ban takes place.
Of course that 19th of April scheduled ban date also allows a little time for HTC to address the problem and remove the small UI experience feature from HTC handsets and replace with something else, which apparently HTC has a plan in place to do so already and will remove the small UI experience in due course.
However, the big question here is what affect will the US IT ruling have on other Android device manufacturers in the US, will we see Apple going after others over the same patents and winning a ban across the board when it comes to Android?
Obviously this is a big win for Apple in the patent dispute game, and I’m fairly sure it wont simply end here but will continue for a whole lot longer yet. If you are into all the tech details of the ruling you can check them out by hitting up HERE (PDF).
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