Apple Officially Wins Over HTC
And the Apple war lives on.
Quick recap: Back in September, the International Trade Commission sided with HTC and agreed investigate Apple for allegedly infringing on some of their patents, which includes power-management methods and phone-number directories used in HTC mobile devices. But in October, the ITC’s initial determination stated that Apple did not infringe on four HTC patents. HTC was counting on S3 Graphics as well as the Google patent they acquired to win this case over Apple but patents from the two companies did not offer much help.
ITC’s investigation was supposed to end by February 2012, but it seems like ITC thought there was no point in dragging the issue loner than it should, so it handed its final decision and ended the investigation.
The following information was take from ITC’s official statement:
“We are disappointed, but respect the ITC’s decision,” HTC General Counsel Grace Lei said in a statement Monday. “While the outcome is not what we hoped for, we will review the ruling once the commission provides it and will then consider all options, including appeal.”
Was The S3 Acquisition an Epic Failure?
HTC planned the S3 acquisition back in July for $300 million, finalizing the deal just last week. But the burning question is, “was that the right or smart thing to do?” The S3 patents offered little help with HTC’s Apple pursuit, and now the acquisition seems like a huge and costly mistake. But HTC doesn’t seem to think so, as Chief Financial Officer Winston Yung defended the costly acquisition.
According to Sterne Agee & Leach Inc. analyst Shaw Wu, “S3 can be innovative and they came up with some nice products, but whether they are relevant to Apple is debatable. Apple has a lot of patents, so it’s going to be tough to beat Apple.”
The Future Of Android
Okay, so the main issue here is Google’s Android platform. With a few wins under Apple’s belt, are they ready to fully take on Android, or will the two companies still keep playing games at the expense of Google OEMs? Only time can tell what these two giants are brewing, but we can bet that there will be more lawsuits and court appearances from both sides.
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