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The International Trade Commission has rejected Apple’s attempt to impose an emergency ban on US imports of the HTC One X, after a ferocious patent dispute between the companies that resulted in a lengthy import inspection last May.
The ITC ruled last December that HTC infringed on Apple’s patent for ‘data tapping’, automatically formatting documents to allow a dialler program to pop up when a phone number appears. After that ruling, HTC announced it would soon remove the feature from devices. Despite the ban being lifted in May, Apple complained that HTC misled customs officials about the devices to guarantee their importation, BGR reports.
Apple has not backed down from Steve Jobs’ declaration of “thermonuclear war” on Android, with the unfortunate side effect of preventing people buying the things they want. The company claims it “needs to protect Apple’s intellectual property when companies steal our ideas”.
Last week the Californian company won an injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus due to the infringement of several software patents — a real source of worry for Google.
Samsung has decided to appeal the injunction, which could potentially see sales come to an end. Samsung believes the ruling was “made in error”, going on to say, “The Court’s finding that Apple will suffer irreparable harm was based on legally insufficient evidence that Samsung and Apple are competitors.”
I’m not sure how Samsung isn’t a competitor to Apple, but it seems to think it’s not. As much as I’d like to believe the ITC effectively telling Apple to “get lost and stop bugging us” will be the end to pointless and annoying litigation, I don’t see that happening any time soon. Oh well, we can dream.
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