Suing your competition? There's an App for that!
This week apple gave HTC an unwanted Christmas present, that of winning a legal battle over the dispute that HTc was in violation of a number of Apple's patents. This is part of a number of legal cases surrounding the intelectual property of mobile phone makers, with much of the patent war being between apple's iPhone, using iOS, and it's competitors using Android. This follows Apple founder Steve Jobs' plan to drive Android out of the market.
HTC's year has been a less than pleasant one in many regards, starting off on a strong footing, the firm then had it's shares loose two thirds of their original value and dissatisfied it's shareholders with news that it's revenue this year wouldn't be dissimilar to last years. This blow to HTC, which will prohibit the sales of its phones in North America from the 19th of April next year, as North America accounts for 40% of its sales and therefore it and, its operating system provider, Google will need to find a work around the patent if they wish to continue selling in that market.
That said, HTC were surprisingly jovial about the ruling as it found that only 1 patent, of the potential 10 that Apple were claiming HTC infringed on, was actually found to be an infringement. HTC commented that "we are very pleased with the determination and we respect it" adding that they would be able to find a work around and are retaliating by claiming Apple infringed on a number of their patents. Although, initially, Apple won the case which is going to be taken up once again in the near future.
This latest court case is just another punch thrown by apple in the mosh pit that is the world of mobile technology today. Last September Apple successfully got the Samsung Galaxy Tablet banned from sale in Germany, another success seeing as the Galaxy Tab was, although one of the many tablets released in the wake of the famous iPad, it is considered its main competitor. On the same front, Samsung are retaliating claiming e iPhone 4/4S and the iPad 2 all infringe on their patents. Else where in the brawl Apple are suing one of the many iPad knockoffs, in this case a Taiwaneese one and Motorola and Microsoft are involved in a fist fight in Germany whilst Oracle and Google wrestle in America.
In short every mobile technology manufacturer that you've ever heard of is suing every other tech company you've heard of because they breach one of their many patents. It's a messed up world that we live in!
This all falls in with Steve Jobs' plan to give up virtually everything to push Android out of the market for "thievery". Although Jobs is no longer able to give his "last breath", which he stated previously he'd be prepared to give, to kill off Android there is still the $40billion of Apple, which he also said he'd give to end the competing operating system,which Apple are making good use off to slowly take all Android using phone manufacturers to court and bit by bit drive them from the market.
Only time will tell whether Apple will power off the Android or whether Android will turn out to be the worm in Apple's core.
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