HTC bags UK win in patent war with Apple A UK court has decided that not only did HTC not infringe on four patents Apple brought against it, but three of them are invalid. HTC was first to file in the UK, trying to invalidate patents that were already at issue in the firms' cases in Germany, but Apple quickly counter-sued over patents dealing with multi-touch, photo …
Apple said it had no additional comment other than its stock reply that "competitors should create their own technology, not steal ours"."
I'm sorry Apple, but judge just ruled that 75% of your patents in this case are invalid and the only one you could have wasn't infringed, which tends to suggest that you're not exactly creating your own technology.
The idiots at the UK patent office granted these patents to Apple. It's the court that has effectively decided that they shouldn't have been in the first place. Please don't give praise to the UKPO - they're the enablers.
Perhaps what companies like Apple should do is sue patent offices that grant them dud patents and cost them legal fees. Then the dummies who work there might have some incentive to actually investigate cases of prior art or simply reject patents that are, y'know, too obvious.
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We really need to get past this stupid patent trolling phase we are going through... there is really no need to patent such trivial pieces of technology, and software patents in general are just a silly idea... plenty of games develop and adapt from each other, or are we just waiting for Activision to file a patent for first person shooters? The mobile sector could learn plenty from the gaming sector in this regard, as the only losers are punters and the main winner is lawyers.
Its not a Win for HTC its a win for all companies :) Who cares who looses when everyone gains :) Apple loosing is just a bonus as they are by a long way the biggest problem at the moment. If you cant beat them sue them with patents that should never have existed. Like the ones banning Samsung atm in america.
Well I don't get the whole "in the UK remember to play nice and respect our rules" angle either, but I've only been here for 15 years. Does this only apply to foreign companies?
After all, British Telecom also have an ongoing patent case against Android (details here) .
What the heck have you been smoking? "Racist"? What utter rot and nonsense.
Telephonic communications in Great Britain and Northern Ireland were originally run by the General Post Office (GPO), which hived off the telephone business to "Post Office Telephones". When the GPO was privatised (a hideous decision that was just plain wrong in my view) - excuse me, when the telephones were "deregulated", it was named "British Telecom". Before long, it was being abbreviated by all and sundry as "BT", and they actually renamed it as "BT" a sort while later, which was more of a fait accomplis than anything remotely sinister. There y'go. History in a nutshell.
"Racist" my arse.
Muppit.
David138: "Thank god the UK justice system works....unless its deporting Terroists."
... or punishing twits ... or not punishing multi-gazillion pound fraudsters. But this is a jolly good result.
I'm interested that Apple felt able to say what they said afterwards . If I'd taken someone to court for shoplifting and, on the basis of the evidence, the case had been dismissed, I think it would be frowned upon if I were to come out and say "See, it just shows people can steal from me with impunity".
"competitors should create their own technology, not steal ours"
Apple think that if they say it often enough and loud enough they can convince the world they invented [anything they say]...
This ruling is a step in the right direction, pity it will probably be ignored in other jurisdictions
Smart phones existed before the iPhone,
I thought iPhone was a not so pretty copy of the LG Prada phone but with a bit more oomph..
take a look http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LG_KE850_Prada_Hauptmen%C3%BC.jpg
I had been using smart phones long before this, and had been installing apps long before this, apple just refined the tech for the non technical public.. And that was why I never owned one, it was too restricted and still is...
Apple invented nothing that wasn't bleeding obvious, they DESIGNED a nice phone, and I will admit they do design nice things... BUT imho unless you make an exact copy that you plan to sell AS an iPhone, how can you sue on a design? oh its black with rounded corners, shock horror!
Have you used or seen a LG Prada phone? Only people who didn't use one say that.
The Prada was not only much smaller (too small for Internet browsing) but didn't have a real operating system, unlike the iPhone. It was buggy as hell, only ran selected Java MIDP apps and , worse of all, the Web browser was a joke.
Those were also crippling features of other phones at the time and why the iPhone was a wild success: Excellent desktop-quality browser, super intuitive touch screen ( no pens), great screen. And a cherry on top - no carrier skinning.
Individually they seem now seem obvious, but back then there was nothing obvious about the combination, nor was there anything like it on the market. That's why it took everyone by surprise. Nokia, RIM, Microsoft all just could't believe it, as shown by their respective lack of success thereafter.
Refined the tech for the non technical public is complete bullshit. Apple was first in making a successful, usable, Unix-based phone. The failures upon failures of previous Linux phones are there to reinforce this, for those of us who saw them.
But you don't say the 'first UNIX based phone', you qualify it with 'successful' and 'usable'. Thus it was not the first, so cannot claim patent or copyright. A failed product can still be prior art.
And I could be a pedant over your use of UNIX, and also ask why a smart phone needs to be running a UNIX like OS (think PalmOS, Nokia Communicator or Windows Mobile devices for other devices that were clearly smart before the iPhone). Apple produced a good product, but not one that was especially innovative.
No True Scotsman - what's a real operating system? The original Iphone couldn't run apps full stop!
Sure the competition wasn't perfect, but neither was the original Iphone. And does this mean that today's Iphone's aren't smartphones, because the screens are tiny compared to the competiton?
The original Iphone also wasn't a wild success - it was massively outsold by other smartphone platforms (Symbian especially). Only with time did sales of the platform gradually increase.
No pens? You don't have to use pens on other touchscreens. But it's an advantage if you can - like on today's Galaxy Note.
"as shown by their respective lack of success thereafter."
What, you mean Nokia outselling Apple to this day, with even Symbian alone outselling Iphone for the duration of its lifetime?
"was to smash the carrier control over the phone software, ending the days of the feature phones. "
What do you mean by this? Feature phones still exist. And they have operating system software that isn't controlled by the carrier (e.g., Nokia's S40). A carrier might add extra stuff on top, but they still do this with smartphones today. The distinction between "feature" and "smart" phones is completely arbitrary anyway, basically a marketing issue. It was introduced around 2004 I guess so there was a way to promote the low end Internet and app phones (which really were smartphones), whilst still justifying a higher price for the high end phones by calling them "smart".
Smartphones haven't got more common than feature phones since 2004, it's just that the definition has changed, so that now increasingly lower priced phones are marketed as "smart" rather than "feature".
Meanwhile, Apple released a non-smart phone that couldn't even run apps, yet marketed it as "smart" anyway.
Does anyone know where the ruling can be downloaded? It's a great curiosity to me that a patent based on software can be claimed in Europe since patents are not allowed here except when that software is an integral part of the hardware. Theses claims are not integral to the hardware: they will run equally well on a range of hardware.
@JaitcH Absolutely not. The US has allowed patents on business processes (software) for two decades. Because other jurisdictions do not allow these patents, that's two decades US companies have had to corner the market. Your proposal effectively hands worldwide rights to US companies because they would then be able to exploit this lop-sided advantage.
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