Cupertino, Calif. – Apple is involved in another patent
dispute with a cellphone manufacturer.
Apple filed twin lawsuits against HTC for allegedly infringing on
20 patents related to the iPhone’s “user interface, underlying architecture and
hardware,” the company said. Suits were filed with the U.S. International Trade
Commission (ITC) and in U.S. District Court in Delaware.
It wasn’t certain how many HTC phones are alleged to infringe and
whether Apple is asking the ITC to ban their importation.
Apple is already involved in a patent dispute with Nokia, which
last October filed a
against Apple in Federal District Court
in Delaware, contending all iPhones from the
first ones shipped in 2007 infringe on 10 Nokia patents. After Nokia pressed
its suit,
filed a countersuit claiming the
cellphone giant is infringing 13 Apple patents. Then early this year, Nokia
ratcheted up its legal assault against Apple, contending in a complaint before
the U.S. ITC that Apple is infringing on Nokia patents in “virtually all” of its cellphones, iPods and computers. Nokia is seeking an
order to bar importation of the infringing Apple products.
In a separate unrelated patent case, Motorola
earlier this year filed
a patent-infringement complaint against Research In Motion before the ITC,
asking the ITC to ban the importation of RIM’s BlackBerry phones because they
infringe on five Motorola’s patents.
