back to article HTC slaps back at Apple patent slap

HTC has fought back against Apple's patent suit with - you guessed it - a patent suit. "We are taking this action against Apple to protect our intellectual property, our industry partners, and most importantly our customers that use HTC phones," Jason Mackenzie, the company's VP for North America, said on Wednesday in a …

COMMENTS

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  1. Justin 7
    Alert

    And the winners are.....

    The Lawyers.....this really does just show that the patent system is broken.

  2. Roger Heathcote 1
    FAIL

    Hmmm...

    ... isn't the entire justification behind the state endorsing a monopoly on behalf of an "inventor" that it somehow works out better for the public in the end? If so, how does this endless acrimony over utterly obvious "inventions" help?

    I propose a new way of quantifying "obvious" for patents. If, when presented with the "problem" an invention purports to solve a small group of perfectly average 10 year olds can come up with the same "solution" the patent is thrown out. e.g.

    Problem: Users can only move one thing around on the screen at a time

    Kids: Just make it so they can move more than one thing at a time

    Result: Goodbye to Apple's ludicrous multitouch patent

    Problem: All the bits of a car don't talk to each other

    Kids: Can't you put them all on a network like phones and computers and stuff

    Result: Goodbye Microsoft's staggeringly stupid in car networking patent

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Microsoft's in-car network patent?

      Doesn't CAN-BUS count as prior art? Or is it excluded as it was invented by Bosch, so technically non-American?

  3. Chris Beach
    FAIL

    Patents Fail Again

    This is yet more reason why software patents need to be scrapped and Patent rules in general need reworking.

    If a company, Apple in this case, don't try to enforce the patent at the time they suspected infringement, the patent should become null and void and enter pubic domain.

    Patents were supposed to give a reward/protect so you could profit from your original hardwork, if you can live without that reward (as Apple, HTC and Nokia all have done), then you don't need the patent protection.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Linux

      Post anonymously?

      Some of the patents Nokia have filed are hardware patents and not software. In my humble opinion, I think hardware patents are justified. Software patents, on the other hand, are evil.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    So by Jobs' own logic

    Based on the Ogg Vorbis codec thing,

    Don't buy Apple- there's a pool of patents being formed to use against it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      RE: So by Jobs' own logic

      Not sure if that was supposed to be a troll or a joke, either way around it made no sense to me whatsoever. Probably because I read the articles about "the Obb-Vorbis codec thing".

  5. Magnus_Pym

    Coincidence? I think not.

    So HTC sign a deal with Microsoft and, hey presto, they find some IP to counter sue apple with.

    See title.

    1. Miek
      Linux

      That deal ...

      That deal between $MS and HTC was likely due to (but not limited to) the Microsoft Exchange support that HTC included in it's phones along with FAT32 ;)

  6. Wang N Staines

    hmmm

    I wonder if recently tied up with MS had given HTC some strength to fight back.

  7. paulf
    Jobs Horns

    Microsoft

    I wonder if there is any relation between the recent "protection racket" style patent settlement between Microsoft and HTC - and this new offensive by HTC against Apple. Could the two events be related? I thought Microsoft and Apple were getting more chummy against the behemoth that is Google, but perhaps Microsoft dished some dirt to HTC against Apple, and/or some lawyer fodder (i.e. folding stuff) was offered to help HTC take this action?

    I don't know for sure, just wondering!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Riiiiigghhhhttttttt.......

      So HTC had absolutely no incentive to fight back against Apple until Microsoft got involved?

      You need a new tinfoil hat - you're has obviously sprung a leak!

  8. Thomas 4

    It's said that when there's no more room in Hell...

    ....the lawyers will walk the Earth.

  9. Jimmy Floyd
    Coat

    I've got a solution!

    How about a HTC-Apple coalition? No?

    Mine's the blue and yellow one.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If it's Tit for Tat...

    ...then Apple's tits are bigger than HTC's tats.

    20 patents beats 5 patents. OK so patent law doesn't work like that, but it would be easier (and cheaper) for all concerned if it did. At the moment the entire idea behind these cases is that rather than defend yourself you counter sue in the hopes that your adversary will drop their suit. So why not formalize it? If X sues Y for 5 infringements and Y sues X for 4 infringements they simply ought to cancel out leaving X sueing Y for a single infringement. The lawyers wouldn't like it so it must be a good idea.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Apples tits are indeed bigger

      Steve Jobs is clearly a bigger tit than any of his customers, and we _know_ how bad they are.

      No icon 'cos there's only a saint Steve and a Jobcifer, no tithead Jobs.

  11. Joe K
    Dead Vulture

    YAWN!

    Can we get a version of El Reg without any of these tiresome patent stories please?

    They really wind me up, its like seeing all innovation being strangled at birth by a pack of vicious lawyers.

    They will never end till some Gov has the balls to bin the whole system.

    1. caffeine addict
      WTF?

      I agree

      Lets have no articles that Joe doesn't approve...

      *sigh*

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      @Joe K

      "Can we get a version of El Reg without any of these tiresome patent stories please?"

      ...and yet you read them and then go on to write a comment about them...

  12. blackworx
    Coffee/keyboard

    Jobs

    Every time I see a quote from that condescending sanctimonious dick I get sick a little in my mouth. Can't he say what he needs to say without sounding so bloody patronising all the time?

    1. Law

      RE: Jobs

      No.

      Sent from my iPhone.

  13. Ammaross Danan
    FAIL

    "Invention"

    The patent system is broken. You built a fusion generator? That should be patentable. Designed an image compression algorithm using sine waves? Have a patent. "Invented" the concept of using a finger to point at something on a screen to "select" it? FAIL. Same with using "multiple" fingers to select edges and corners and use "gestures" to do some form of action. FAIL. Sure, the hardware to do it? Patentable. Perhaps even the code to cause it to happen, but NOT the IDEA itself. Rubbish. Maybe I'll patent the process of viewing symbols to derive some meaning based on the sequence of said symbols and call it "reading." I'll patent the symbols while I'm at it, and the concept of forming multiple "pages" of these "symbols" into a bound copy called a "book."

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