Apple is beating HTC in a patent case

THE PATENT BATTLE between HTC and Apple is going the latter's way after a judge made a preliminary ruling in its favour.

Apple won the preliminary ruling at the end of last week, giving it more confidence that it will prevail in its complaint that HTC is infringing two of its patents. HTC of course will continue to litigate the matter, because as we all know much of the business of the modern IT firm is to sit in court rooms and squabble over who did what to whom and when and how.

Although the judge has approved of two out of the dozen claims made by Apple, HTC was relatively relaxed about the decision. However this might have been because it had not had a proper chance to read about it before it felt compelled to comment.

"We are highly confident we have a strong case for the ITC appeals process and are fully prepared to defend ourselves using all means possible," said Grace Lei, general counsel of HTC in a statement.

"We strongly believe we have alternate solutions in place for the issues raised by Apple. We look forward to resolving this case, so we can continue creating the most innovative mobile experiences for consumers."

The devices in question are something of a mystery but it is more than likely that they are smartphones. Apple's ideal seems to be a total ban on imports of any infringing HTC products, and this is something that the International Trade Commission (ITC) can approve.

This preliminary ruling was made by an ITC judge, but the final decision will be laid down by the ITC in full. µ