HTC HAS claimed victory over Apple in a closely watched intellectual property case for the smartphone industry, despite a US court ruling that imposes a ban on the import of some of HTC’s handsets into the US.
The Taiwanese company said the final ruling by the US International Trade Commission “declared an actual victory for HTC”. The ruling found that HTC had only infringed on one patent out of 10 complaints made by Apple, and rejected two of the four claims on the patent that had been upheld in an earlier decision. The court also gave HTC until April 19th next year to comply with the ruling.
“Since the infringing elements identified by the ITC involve and impact only a very minimal part of the user interface, we will remove it as soon as possible and sell non-infringing products,” HTC said.
The ruling has been seen as a test in the patent wars in which much of the smartphone industry has become embroiled. Analysts and legal experts say the ruling showed Apple had achieved only minor success in slowing the advance of Google Android phonemakers like HTC and Samsung via legal measures.
The Google software is included in more than half of the smartphones sold in the US, with HTC accounting for around 10 per cent of sales, according to estimates.
Pierre Ferragu, analyst at Bernstein, said he believed the ruling would have few consequence for HTC’s business in the US, its biggest market. “It shows one more time that obtaining import bans that actually have an impact on business dynamics is very difficult,” he said.
Ron Cass, a former vice-chairman of the court, said: “If I’m HTC, and particularly if I’m Google, I’m feeling a lot better today than if I’m Apple.”
Nevertheless, Jasmine Lu, analyst at Morgan Stanley, said while the legal decision will not affect HTC’s business, the trend of HTC losing market share in the US is one that is unlikely to change in the short term.
“The real threat comes from others in the Android camp, both from the high-end – mainly Samsung – and the mid- to low end – China-based names – while wider distribution of [the] iPhone 4S largely eats into its pie,” she wrote to clients. HTC sales have taken a hit from weaker consumer demand in the US and Europe, and from competition.
Investors sent HTC shares up by their daily limit of 7 per cent to close at T$476 in Taipei.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011
