HTC slips One X, Evo 4G past Apple US patent ban
Fruity tech titan powerless to stop Android shipments
Cloud storage: Lower cost and increase uptime
HTC's latest smartphones have passed inspection by US customs while en route to American pockets, rendering an import ban won by Apple useless.
The fruity firm got a blocking order from the International Trade Commission (ITC) after successfully arguing in December that one of its user-interface patents was partly infringed by HTC's handsets. The patent in question involves identifying and highlighting, say, a phone number in an email and allowing the punter to make a call to that number.
However, that feature isn't essential to HTC handsets, and the Taiwanese company promptly removed the software component from its gear so that it could push its Android-powered phones into America.
Nevertheless, boxes of the HTC One X and the Evo 4G LTE were warehoused until US customs officers were convinced that the infringing feature had been removed. The mobe maker was forced to announce the inspections this month when stocks ran low on the One X and the launch of the Evo was stalled.
The delay was enough to spook investors a bit, sending shares sliding by 7 per cent. HTC's profits have been dropping as it struggles to compete with Apple and other rivals, and it must get new, and therefore potentially more popular, mobiles to market quickly if it hopes to recover.
HTC said today that US customs had completed the review and its kit had been released.
"HTC devices have been released as they are in compliance with the ITC's ruling," the firm said in a canned statement.
"Future shipments should continue to enter the US and we are confident we will soon be able to meet demand for our products." ®
COMMENTS
And *still* no-one picks up on this...
Apples new cuddly CEO suddenly wants to talk rather than litigate, just as they are about to bring out tellies with exactly the same look and feel as all the others Samsung, LG etc launched over the last 10 years. Yes lads, all that rounded corner nonsense was just a joke - you'll forget it all now we want to bring stuff out which we innovated from your designs, right? The same way we innovated our name from the Beatles record label, innovated all Androids 2+ year old features in our latest toy, and in fact are about to innovate the same screen size all the decent phones out today have in our next one.
Re: Very, very confused
Yes, but Sony Ericsson isn't a US company, so therefore they don't exist as far as the US patent office is concerned. And, if they don't exist, they couldn't have done something before Apple did, could they?
Very, very confused
The patent in question involves identifying and highlighting, say, a phone number in an email and allowing the punter to make a call to that number
My Sony Ericsson W800i does that, and I bought it in 2006.
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
What you need to know about cloud backup
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Customer Success Testimonial: Recovery is Everything
Data control in the cloud
