HTC beats Apple in UK court

[garyopa]

A judge rules HTC doesn't violate Apple's patents



Yep, Apple and HTC are fighting multiple legal battles across Europe and the US.
However, an UK court handed down a ruling saying that HTC does not violate Apple's patents.

Yes, Apple and HTC are also battling over patents across Europe and the US.

However, in the UK, a judge ruled out that HTC smartphones are not in violation of any of the EU patents Apple brought to the court.

The UK court handed down a ruling that HTC does not violate four Apple patents, including the infamous slide-to-unlock claim.

What's more, the judge ruled that three of the four patents in question were not valid, among them the aforementioned unlocking design. The only one of the four patents that stood at the end of the day was related to scrolling through images in the photo management app, but HTC did not infringe upon the claim.

These were the four patents at stake:

- Unlocking a device by performing a gesture on an image.
- The use of a multilingual keyboard offering different alphabets on portable devices, including mobile phones.
- A system to determine which elements of a screen were activated by single-finger touches; which were activated multi-finger touches and which ignored touches altogether.
- Letting a user drag an image beyond its limits and then showing it bounce back into place to illustrate that they had reached its furthest edge.

With Apple's recent legal victories over the last couple of weeks, it was time a Judge ruled against them.

So, UK citizens -at least- don't have to fear over a similar ban on HTC devices, any time soon.

NEWS SOURCE #1: UK Judge rules HTC doesn't violate Apple's patents invalidates (via) EnGadget
NEWS SOURCE #2: Technology #18709232 (via) BBC News

Our thanks to 'Gauss' for this news item!

[billysastard]

"htc takes a byte out of apple in uk court" come on guys, that was the headline begging to be written

[Battlefield]

Great. Another lose for the patent company Apple. If they focused more on quality and hardware than patents, maybe they could get more people to buy their ****.

[msanchez]

...If they focused more on quality and hardware than patents, maybe they could get more people to buy their ****.

I actually think I need to disagree, those of us left without icrap jammed into every single one of our pockets will probably not buy icrap unless we have no choice... so really the only way crapple will get me to buy icrap is to obliterate all other competition. Since we know they won't be doing that with their products, the only way would be to patent troll them into submission.

.... Shame US laws seem to be so accomodatting for these monumental wastes of time called patent infringment cases. They really need to rethink this whole patent crap, and come up with a way where you protect intellectual property without stiffling innovation/creativity... basically the practice should be closer to the theory.

[Battlefield]

I actually think I need to disagree, those of us left without icrap jammed into every single one of our pockets will probably not buy icrap unless we have no choice... so really the only way crapple will get me to buy icrap is to obliterate all other competition. Since we know they won't be doing that with their products, the only way would be to patent troll them into submission.

.... Shame US laws seem to be so accomodatting for these monumental wastes of time called patent infringment cases. They really need to rethink this whole patent crap, and come up with a way where you protect intellectual property without stiffling innovation/creativity... basically the practice should be closer to the theory.

I was never planning to buy icrap anyway, or anything they make. So far i never bought anything for them, and my feelings says its 0% chance for me to buy anything too. I cant be brainswashed to get either anything with "i-blablabla", If i got one for free, i would still use Android and WP7.5 for many reasons.
I did 2 exceptions earlier... I bought Sega Dreamcast even when i was anti-sega, because the console was too damn good to skip.
There is no chance that Apple will get monopoly, because HTC and Samsung especially is taking from the Apple market. Android have many big manufacturers, while Apple is only 1.

As for the patent stuff, the governement should kick in to stop this patent madness. I have been tired of the patent lawsuits for a long time, because its nearly only stupid cases to try to earn some quick bucks.

The main thing i always hated about Apple, is the damn 1 button thingy. MAC used 1 button mouses, and you had to like drag programs into a trashcan to get it started..DOH.. Is that user friendly?...NOT.
At the same time i was used to 3 mouse buttons on both Amiga and PC. There was no chance in hell i could get used to a limited mouse, and a OS based on it.
On any icrap device, there is probably the damn 1 button thingy going on and on again. Do everything with ONE button..Goddamn i hate that, and its all a hassle to me.