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Customs Letting In Some HTC Smartphones

Taoyuan, Taiwan – U.S. customs has inspected some HTC
smartphones to ensure they don’t violate an Apple patent and have released some
of them to U.S. carriers, HTC said.

“Some models have gone through inspection and been released
to our carriers customers,” HTC said. “We don’t have the status of each
specific device model at this time, but we are working closely with customs. We
remain confident that this issue will be resolved soon.”

A request to the company’s U.S. subsidiary for more details
has not been answered.

Phone models known to be held up at customs include the One
X 4G phone for the AT&T network and the Evo 4G LTE for the Sprint network.
AT&T had already begun selling One X phones on May 6 from inventories
obtained before customs began on April 19 to inspect HTC imports. Sprint’s Evo
4G LTE launch was postponed from May 18 because of the inspections.

The patent in question was part of an Apple complaint before
the International Trade Commission (ITC), which last December barred HTC from
importing select phones using the patent starting April 19. At the time, HTC
said it would modify the phones found to be in violation to eliminate the
patented technology.

On its website, HTC had the following to say: “Each imported
HTC model must be reviewed by Customs and will be released once Customs
officials have completed the inspection. Some models have gone through
inspection and been released to our carriers customers. We don’t have the
status of each specific device model at this time, but we are working closely
with Customs. We remain confident that this issue will be resolved soon.”

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