HTC Already Has Workaround to Avoid the ITC Ban
HTC has already completed a workaround to prevent certain handsets from being banned from import into the United States.
Earlier this week, the ITC ruled that HTC was infringing upon one of Apple's patents and issued a ban preventing certain HTC phones from being imported into the U.S. Soon after the ruling was handed down, the company announced plans to modify its phones so that they no longer infringe upon this patent.
"[...] the '647 patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon," the company was quoted as saying.
Now, just a couple of days later, it looks like HTC has already successfully taken action to remove the offending feature, which allows users to interact with phone numbers and other types of formatted data in an unstructured document by tapping the number to launch another application, such as the dialer or SMS app. Bloomberg reports that the company has "completed a technical workaround" and quotes HTC CEO Peter Chou as saying the feature was rarely used in the first place.
"It's actually quite rarely used," Chou said.
Though the ITC ruling was in Apple's favor, HTC isn't too upset by it. The company said yesterday that it was pleased with International Trade Commission's ruling and no wonder: According to CNet, Apple's original complaint alleged infringement on 10 patents, as opposed to just the one that HTC was ultimately found guilty of.
"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," HTC told BGR this week. "We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it. However, the '647 patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon."
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Well done you!
in the end all these licensing fees are passed on to the consumers, majority of whom don't even know they paid for features they will rarely use
Nice one by HTC.
The "Apple's original complaint alleged infringement on 10 patents, as opposed to just the one that HTC was ultimately found guilty of." part got me thinking: could Apple be suing for no reason other than screwing HTC, I mean, trying to ban their products for no reason? It looks like Apple takes sueing as sort of a business branch.
To Apple: "Easy get easy go..." Nice one HTC
Go HTC :-)
oh no next companies will be sueing over all sorts of ui things. you software has a menu and we came up with menus! Oh lets not forget the icon too. lol.
If you cant beat em fair and square, sue em. Isn't that right Apple.
oh no next companies will be sueing over all sorts of ui things. you software has a menu and we came up with menus! Oh lets not forget the icon too. lol.
Your phone has a smart operating system! we have had smart operating systems before you! I shall render your phones unusable!
I just don't see how this qualifies for a patent. It's an obvious application, after all.
I just don't see how this qualifies for a patent. It's an obvious application, after all.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure every cell phone I've ever had has had this feature. I remember it from text messages with my old siemens, motorola, nokia, ericsson devices...
It should be obvious to everyone now that Apple is no longer a tech business. They are a patent troll that hides under the guise of a tech business. They haven't innovated anything in long time, and spend all their time suing other companies and re-releasing their old technology with new names.
Apple is like a 2 year child who whines and sues when they don't get there way. I like how HTC fixes in a day and laughs it off, where apple spends millions of dollars on attorneys over something so stupid.
It looks like Steve Handjobs reign of terror and communism is starting to come to end. Apple is suing ever competitor in a last desperate attempt to save there inferior phone, I mean iPhone.
in 2009 the year of modern gpu's i fell in love with tomshardware
now i wish it just die, always portraying apple as superior - apple may be great but they aren't superior to google or microsoft - no one is, BAD "opinion" articles, LATE NEWS, always portraying steve ballmer as some ape - not cool he may have done mistakes but hes still alright he brought us a great win 7, win 7.5 and soon win 8
post PC era my ass..... im looking at you wolfgang!!!!!
i meant WP 7.5 and forgot to include a good run for xbox 360 and introduction of the excellent Kinect
Yeah, I'm pretty sure every cell phone I've ever had has had this feature. I remember it from text messages with my old siemens, motorola, nokia, ericsson devices...
Well, the patent was filed in 1996 and granted in 1999. So, unless your phones before then had the feature it doesn't matter.
That said the internet hive-mind has supposedly found prior art from the 1970s or so, so if HTC wanted to get it invalidated, they probably could.
Well actually back in the old BBS days mid 80's (Some might recall =) i made a text reader with a feature just like that ridiculous patent, any mouse clicks over a phone number were passed to a terminal program to dial that number. Still have that source code laying around, maybe ill give that C source code predating the patent to htc to use as a foundation to invalidate crapples infringement claims.
Yet another reason i refuse to buy those awful apple products. I'm not gonna support their complete bs lawsuits. You should fight to protect things but the patent system is crap when it comes to software and apple grossly abuses it. Its pathetic and sad.
So HTC is taking it well; meanwhile the fanboys are all up in arms.