Apple wins another infringement case against HTC’s Android-based smartphones – Part 1

Since the original iPhone set foot in the mobile communications market, it has become an ‘inspiration’; it has been copied on several levels. Apple has been busy of late in taking the infringement problems in their stride. For better or for worse, these
copy cases have been in the news, especially this year, and Apple loves it.

The more the success of iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch—which share the same iOS operating system—the more their operating system is copied in the market. Recently Google announced to launch its virtual assistant, Majel, that will become a part of the Ice Cream
Sandwich version of Android. It is an attempt to compete with Apple’s assistant, Siri that has been iPhone 4S’ major selling point. This shows the magnitude to which Apple inspires its peers.

In recent news, Apple filed for infringement of copyrights at International US Trade Commission against HTC, the Taiwanese mobile phone manufacturers. The case was built on 10 violations of Apple’s copyrights but the ITC only approved of one.

There is a feature in Apple that distinguishes the numeric data in a email or text message and makes it a hyperlink. On tapping the link, the telephone feature comes to life automatically and the user can dial same number automatically fed into the dialler.

The Cupertino-based firm found the same functionality in HTC’s Android-based phones; Google is an official partner of HTC and develop the Android operating system and its various versions. The email apps or web browser in HTC phones can identify a numeric
value in the stream of text as a possible phone number and the same procedure like iOS can be followed.

ITC identified it as a possible infringement of Apple’s patent on such functionality. Therefore, a warning has been issued to HTC to make changes to their upcoming handsets. Although this change will come no earlier than mid-April, HTC has acknowledged the
notice. However, the Taiwan-based company mentioned their reservations as well.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Dec 20 2011. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry