In a ruling issued by the International Trade Commission, HTC was found in violation of two patents belonging to the Cupertino company; a ban will go into effect for all affected HTC devices on April 19, 2012. The patents cover a UI feature of sorts that basically turns computer text data into a link or other usable interaction in another place, like for dialing a phone number through a link in an email.
The victory for Apple was accompanied by some losses however, with rulings that found HTC did not violate more crutial patents involving real-time signal processing that would have caused the most severe blows to HTC’s ability to make brisk changes and avoid major losses.
Wasting no time at all, HTC released a statement deflecting from their minor defeat and focusing more on the their decisive wins. They also lay out their next course of action and outwardly express a sense of gratification for the end results:
HTC:
“This decision is a win for HTC and we are gratified that the commission affirmed the judge’s determination on the ’721 and ’983 patents, and reversed its decision on the ’263 patent and partially on the ’647 patent. We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it. The ’647 patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon.”
Hit the break for full ITC ruling in PDF.
[via engadget]