Have you ever wondered what’s happening behind the scenes when on one side, we are absolutely fascinated with the new technology from the major cell phone manufacturers? They are indeed at war, and if it was anybody’s guess, it is over patents.
Just last week, the US International Trade Commission charged the popular mobile phone manufacturer HTC for infringing upon 2 of Apple iPhone’s patents. However, an appeal has been submitted by HTC who is also threatening Apple to justify its position with reference to the patents that they gained when S3 Graphics was acquired. HTC’s CEO, Peter Chou, in a statement to BBC, also added that they are sure to win as they have enough patents in order to make a stand. Peter also mentioned that one should engage in such fights over customers only in the market place, not in courts.
On a similar front, Apple targeted Google, the manufacturers of Android, which also happens to be the operating system in the HTC handsets. A patent expert, Florian Mueller, strongly believes that Apple’s case against HTC draws straight to the core of ‘operating system functionalities’ of Android. Due to this reason, he feels there could be a serious patent implication on the complete Android ecosystem.
As if all this was not enough, Apple has also targeted Samsung Electronics in a case of patent infringement. Interestingly, Samsung has counter-sued Apple stating that the latter is fringing on few of its own patents alone in the US (approximately 28,700 patents are being held by Samsung).
Luckily, for us as customers, smartphone technology is continually moving forward and that is what matters!
