HTC sues Apple in the UK

TAIWANESE SMARTPHONE MAKER HTC has sued rival firm Apple in the UK in the sort of tit for tat legal battle that supports entire law firms for years.

HTC recently got a ruling in its favour, of a sort, having been found to infringe only two out of twelve patents held by Apple, and at the time vowed to defend itself.

The company promised to appeal against this initial ruling, which could have seen its products banned from the US.

"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.

"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."

HTC must consider offense the best form of defence, however, as this weekend the company sued Apple in Britain, reports Bloomberg. Details so far are very light but HTC already has an International Trade Commission (ITC) decison in its favour in the US, one that ruled that some of its S3 Graphics technology was infringed by Apple. Shortly after this decision was announced HTC snapped up that company and its patent booty.

We asked HTC for more information about the case and its expectations and despite not saying very much, it did say that it would always fight to protect its intellectual property.

"We don't comment on pending litigation," it said in a statement. "As a leading smartphone innovator, we respect intellectual property of others and will defend our own intellectual property as needed." µ