Patent infringement is something that giant tech companies fight day in and day out. Whether it’s in self defense from a competitor or protecting their own interests, the modern tech company will unavoidably spend a fair amount of company resources on patents and infringement.
Without getting too political or diving deep into the catacombs of lawyer speak, we’ll simply state the infringement claims against HTC according to Apple, then point out how it’s broken. Continue on…
The infringement claims:
- Patent 7,383,453: Conserving power by reducing voltage supplied to an instruction-processing portion of a processor (granted June 3, 2008)
- Patent 7,657,849: Unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image (granted February 2, 2010)
- Patent 6,282,646: System for real-time adaptation to changes in display configuration (granted August 28, 2001)
- Patent 7,380,116: System for real-time adaptation to changes in display configuration (granted May 27, 2008)
Take a second to look ‘em through. Ok…second’s up. Like I said, I’m not going to get uber deep into this. But I do want to highlight something important: The US Patent system is broken and grossly inept at correctly issuing patents in todays modern, digital world.
Out of the four patent infringement claims listed above, there’s only one that really stands out. Claim #2
- Patent 7,657,849: Unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image (granted February 2, 2010)
WTH? A patent on a something as simple as “Unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image”. That pretty much incriminates every other mobile OS on the planet. Not only that, but giving “rights” to the mere tapping/sliding/moving of a an image to change a phone from “locked” to “unlocked” is so overly vague and general. It boggles my mind the people who grant these patents actually consider themselves knowledgeable and competent human beings.
All things considered, HTC has vocalized their willingness to aggressively fight for what they believe is their own as well. If I recall correctly, the last time Apple slapped HTC with two patent infringement claims (those same two also make up two of the new four claims) HTC responded rather quickly by issuing their own patent infringement cases against Apple.
If anything is for certain, the Apple vs. HTC battle is going to very long indeed.
