oh yes, for last 6 years but usually we get this nonsense from Nick :)

Ha! I can't wait until it comes out. I see the Vista of Phone OSes on the horizon. No one! and I mean NO ONE! has anything to worry about with Windows Phone 7. It will be shuned heavily, like Vista. The only good side is that all those cool phones that have just came out(In my case the HTC Touch Pro 2 and Touch Diamond 2, will drop in price like stones, then I can finally afford one. Otherwise I'm looking to get one of the even Cooler China clones. XD

@dave and hexx... have you never read the Inquirer before?!

Take your 5% marketshare elsewhere if you're so unhappy.

"IF APPLE THOUGHT that HTC would quit the smart phone business just because it got slapped with a lawsuit, it appears to be sadly mistaken."

if Apple thought or IF YOU THOUGHT? jeeez ffs inq hire proper journalists not these bloggers

Apple has the 2nd best lawyers in the tech industry (after only IBM), and forty billion dollars. Plus, there's those UI patents.

Mua ha ha ha.

Where is the evidence the iPhone is losing market share?

The only reason Apple is sueing HTC comes from the simple fact that the iPhone is losing marketshare to Android and most likely will lose more to the upcoming Win7 mobile OS.
Apple has not really improved the iPhone or Touch since its release and all the other phone companies have and caught up to Apple and offer better hardware now.
So instead of making a better phone or service...just sue

Apple will clearly lose this court battle as their patents are all based on alien technology that no other company can replicate. With that in mind it seems baffling that they're even taking this court, unless they have also obtained mind control technology that they'll use on the judge. This is feasible as they seem to have the ability to make people make illogical purchases.

Do you seriously believe that Apple thought that HTC would pack up their business just because of a patent dispute?

This sort of patent duelling is common in the tech industry and usually amounts to nothing more than sabre rattling.

I'm not an Apple fanboy but your article is clearly anti Apple and has more than a touch of bias to it - the type of reporting I loathe - why not focus on the patents that HTC own that Apple will have no doubt infringed upon which will undoubtedly lead to an agreement between the two companies to licence each others software patents?