Interesting news in the middle of the night: Apple and HTC have announced they’ve settled all their patent disputes, bringing an end to all running lawsuits between the two companies. The companies signed a ten-year cross-licensing deal. Considering Apple’s legal assault on Android hasn’t been going particularly well, this really shouldn’t come as a surprise.
The two companies sent out a press release during the night to announce the cross-licensing agreement. “HTC and Apple have reached a global settlement that includes the dismissal of all current lawsuits and a ten-year license agreement,” the two state, “The license extends to current and future patents held by both parties. The terms of the settlement are confidential.”
Apple started its legal crusade against HTC well over two years ago, and HTC obviously couldn’t do anything else but reply in the form of countersuits. Since then, the lawsuits have been flying back and forth, but due to Samsung’s meteoric rise in popularity, Apple shifted most of its focus to Samsung instead since it represents more of a threat to Apple’s business than HTC does.
Both companies also added a short statement. “HTC is pleased to have resolved its dispute with Apple, so HTC can focus on innovation instead of litigation,” said Peter Chou, HTC’s CEO. Apple CEO Tim Cook added that “we are glad to have reached a settlement with HTC. We will continue to stay laser focused on product innovation.”
What’s interesting here is that we’re looking at a cross-licensing agreement, and not a mere sack of money going from HTC to Apple. In fact, HTC has told The Verge that HTC “does not expect this license agreement to have any adverse material impact on the financials of the company”, meaning it didn’t cost HTC a whole lot of money. This seems to indicate that the actual cross-licensing was of more import than HTC licensing Apple’s patents; i.e., that HTC’s patents were anything but worthless.
While this licensing agreement may come as a surprise, the fact of the matter is that from Apple’s point of view, it just makes good business sense to start bringing an end to its legal assault on Android. These past few years of patent aggression by Apple have given the Cupertino company little to nothing – the UK, The Netherlands, Germany, Australia; Apple didn’t win anything substantial anywhere, while the lawsuits did tarnish the company’s name. Nobody wants to be known for litigation.
The only potentially meaningful win Apple has scored so far is in the US, but even that win is on shaky ground as judge Lucy Koh has recently agreed to consider Samsung’s evidence of juror misconduct. While the legal outcome might obviously be different – Samsung is really shooting for the stars here – it’s pretty clear to any impartial observer that the jury in this case, especially the foreman, has acted very questionably.
In other words – it looks like to me Apple is settling here because its legal assault simply isn’t going too well. While I applaud the two companies settling, I would’ve much rather seen all this come to a massive clash, with a judge slapping all of these whiny multi-billion dollar crybabies on the wrist for wasting public resources on what are essentially the corporate equivalent of several douchebags comparing penis lengths.
They’ve won some and they’ve lost some, no need to take sides and start another useless flame war on here. The great news is that they have signed an agreement, which will be beneficial to BOTH companies in the long run, and that’s what’s important. In the absence of true patent reform, agreements like this are what should be happening and we should be applauding it.
Agreed. By the way, anyone know which side initiated the settlement talks as opposed to continuing the litigation? I’d be interested to know which side raised the idea first. I know most on here would be tempted to say HTC but, from a business standpoint, it could have easily been Apple’s idea as well.
This is probably the worst thing that could happen to innovation. Without the patent system exploding, we will never see any usable patent reform, meaning any newcomer will be literally crushed when they try to enter the market. There is still a patent minefield out there.
This ONLY benefits the big fish, making the entry-barrier even higher.
/Uni
Can we really applaud an agreement as good without knowing the terms?
NEGATIVE.
Now one side will PAY the other (deal with 0 as balance is unlikely).
So THIS side will rise their smartphone priceses.
CONSUMER LOOSE.
And put “copying” in to the bin. IF HTC release any product, its because they have paid WHOLE bill for R&D.
So they pay EXTRA.
Consumer would get EXACTLY SAME device without that deal.
So CONSUMER LOOSE.
So there is no need for CONSUMERT TO APPLAUSE THAT DEAL.
HTC – settled
Samsung – lost a jury trial with a penalty in excess of $1 billion, no major injunctions or victories against Apple products, numerous antitrust investigations
Motorola – numerous antitrust investigations, weighing down Google’s financials
The Android RDF is quite powerful.
I’d call that a success but not a successful litigation. Had Apple been successful in the court room against HTC, I doubt this cross-licensing would have happened now. I call this settlement a success for both, since both companies can now get back to what they’re good at (making awesome products) and spend money on r&d and future innovation.
You do know that Samsung, as of yet, hasn’t had to pay a dime and the appeal could go either way? Do you have a source for your claim of an anti-trust investigation against Samsung? I’ve not heard about this.
Indeed, but keep in mind that Motorola and Apple are by no means done with their legal mudslinging, and it’s still taking up resources that should be going elseware. This most recent one is Google/Motorola’s fault however, so I can’t exactly feel much sympathy for them.
As is the Linux rdf, the Microsoft rdf, the Apple rdf: well, you take my point. Actually, around here, I’ve noticed the Microsoft and Linux rdfs becoming the strongest, but that’s another topic altogether.
So it’s certainly not a failure for Apple, and certainly, HTC would have preferred to have carried on without any legal threat or any need to settle a legal action.
Yes to the first question (I approach litigation with practicality — it is nearly impossible to not suffer some losses and it is time consuming; this doesn’t alter the fact that Apple is “winning” against Samsung); no to the second. This is like saying the US Presidential election could have gone either way. Sure, in theory, but in practicality, the odds are hugely stacked in Apple’s favor despite the propaganda of Thom and Pj.
Every major news outlet has reported on it. Maybe you should read news produced by non-Fandroids:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/06/us-samsung-apple-korea-pr…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204740904577194503316…
http://bgr.com/2012/10/24/apple-samsung-patent-despite-doj-investig…
Sure, it is by no means done. But, of course, Motorola is completely lacking in any significant victory at this stage. AND is facing 3 antitrust investigations. AND is providing NEGATIVE financial impact to Google. Your view that they’d both be better off by not litigating, doesn’t change the fact that Apple has been more successful against Motorola than vice versa.
Edited 2012-11-11 15:33 UTC
Why do people do this, btw? Can it just stop? If you know someone is posting something that is actually wrong, please refute them with the facts and links, or challenge them to substantiate their false claims with supporting evidence. This is fine. But if you are ignorant of the facts, don’t ask someone who is equipped with the facts to educate you. Do the research yourself. Googling “Samsung antitrust patents” takes 2 seconds.
People do this because, uhm, that’s how arguing works. Maybe not in, say, politics, but in the real world, people want proof. You’re the one making the claim, you’re the one who has to back it up.
Of course, this was a widely known fact, but even then, the request is valid.
It’s lazy. This may be how arguing works for you, but for me, it’s a way to lose an argument. You don’t know the facts, want me to help you learn the facts, and are questioning the validity of my facts based on ZERO evidence? You lose.
For myself, if someone raises a point that I’m ignorant of, I don’t think doubting the point is a rebuttal. I think: heh, I should learn about that so I can properly respond.
The end result of asking for factual support of a well-publicized fact is demonstration that you are ignorant and unwilling or unequipped to educate yourself.
This sticks in my craw. I’m not making a “claim.” If someone wants to engage me in an “argument,” they better not be unaware of significant, well-established facts key to the argument. Moreover, if they do intend to question my “claims” they should do so based on some evidence of their own, not ignorance. It’s just as easy (in fact, far easier) to say that it was darknexus questioning my “claim” without any evidence for or against this “claim;” therefore, it is his responsible to demonstrate the smallest iota of evidence to raise a question in the first place. The notion that any and all facts must be proven with x number of links if questioned by someone who is ignorant is pure silliness — every discussion would be a regression to complete idiocy, burdened by citation after citation. Certainly, you wouldn’t like responding to every question asked of your unlinked “claims,” particularly those which are factual.
Edited 2012-11-11 17:22 UTC
Sometimes people are genuinely ignorant of, and surprised by, the facts. They should in an ideal world be thus prompted to go and check for themselves but are often too lazy.
Sometimes people don’t like the facts and like to impugn their validity through the tedious rhetorical flourish of asking for ‘proof’. Those people don’t go looking because they think, correctly, that they won’t like what they will find and are hoping you won’t bother.
Because logically speaking, it’s impossible to prove that something does not exist. Therefore, the onus is on the person making an assertion to provide supporting evidence.
Just as it would have only taken 2 seconds for the person challenging the claim to verify it himself, it only took 2 seconds to verify it for him and to illustrate his ignorance on the topic in the process. Hardly a significant cost, in comparison to a situation where nobody is supporting any of their claims because everyone operates on the assumption that everyone else possesses all the same knowledge.
This took two seconds to find………
http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/31/samsung-faces-eu-antitrust-inves…
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57507511-94/korea-investigating-sa…
Apple has lost every significant non-US lawsuit. It will almost certainly lose the recent California lawsuit on appeal.
More importantly Apple is been is being annihilated in the most important “court” – the market. It now has less than 20% of the smartphone market and less than 50% tablet marketshare. The numbers are only going to get much worse for Apple.
Two years ago Apple had a little less than 3% of worldwide mobile phone sales. Now they have a little less than 7% of worldwide mobile phone sales. In other words, Apple’s share has grown by more than 100%.
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1372013
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=2120015
Don’t be ridiculous. Two years ago most of the world’s people were using feature phones. The feature phone has zero long term future.
Apple is currently being outsold 4:1 by Android smartphones. It will probably be closer to 10:1 in another 12-18 months.
Apple’s phone market share and its valuation have increased 100% in the last two years. I’m unclear what you think is ridiculous or losing about that.
Edited 2012-11-12 04:29 UTC
What you saw:
What he actually wrote:
Hope that helps.
And? The ratio of all Android phones to iPhones has less to do with iPhone market share than you and the previous commenter seem to think.
Since 2010 to 2012, iPhone has increased market share despite Android selling at a far greater rate because Nokia, RIM, and others continue to decline AND the majority of Android providers who are not Samsung are also shrinking. So there is absolutely ZERO data sources that will show that Apple’s share of smartphones declined from 2010 to now. A couple of them will show some recent decline but nothing remotely offsetting the gains over the last two years.
“If these trends continues… ayyyy!” -Disco Stu.
Apple will have 97% of the feature phone market by 2072. /sarc
If the trend continues, Apple will increase its share 100% every two years.
Doh! -Homer
Or HTC could have stopped using the features that Apple deemed to be infringing. I am not saying they should have or that Apple were right in what they did, just that they way you choose to phrase it implies that HTC had only one course of action open to it – counter suing – when it actually had more than one.
It’s possible that that is the explanation for this deal but it is inaccurate to say that Apple has ‘little to nothing’ to show for it’s legal strategy. It depends on what you think the purpose of that legal strategy was. If you think, wrongly and foolishly in my opinion, that the purpose of Apple’s legal strategy was to actually stop the manufacture and sale of competing devices then such a strategy would end in failure because it is an impossible goal to seek. Apple know that it is impossible which is why it is not their goal.
Apple’s aim with it’s legal strategy was to establish a reputation and create a new culture around the way other companies viewed ‘borrowing’ or emulating or mimicking Apple’s designs.
What Apple now has is a strong reputation as an aggressive defender of what it considers to be it’s IP and a company that is very willing to take aggressive legal action. That may have been Apple’s prime motivation to start with, to create a reputation that would over time deter companies from copying Apple’s IP in a cavalier and care free way.
Such a strategy won’t stop copying but if Apple can succeed in establishing a reputation as a company that will come out with all legal guns blazing at the smallest provocation then it is inevitable that that will have a deterrent effect some of the time.
I am sure that Apple’s legal strategy has damaged it’s reputation in the eyes of some and I am also sure that that damage is utterly insignificant in terms of overall brand reputation and impact on sales. Apple took the decision that to wage a war of legal attrition in order to make sure that other companies know that it is fierce and determined defender of it’s IP was worth doing even if it pissed off some (but not many) consumers.
Please be clear that nothing I have said concerns the rights or wrongs of what Apple or the Android OEMs have done. It is just an attempt to understand what Apple’s strategy was about, as far as they are concerned, and thus whether it can be judged a success or not, as far as Apple are concerned.
I would think that on the whole they are happy with the war so far. Many battles fought, some won, some lost, some as yet undecided and some have not even started yet. Already however Apple has established one very important fact, it will fight and fight hard.
As far as the HTC settlement is concerned one cannot know the exact reasons without being privy to secret information but one way Apple might have looked at this was to ask itself ‘why bother to murder a dying man?’
No matter what HTC did Apple would have found something that infringed. There is no escape. You see, this isn’t about what is infringing but Apple stopping Android by any means possible.
I’m afraid it is the only option open to Apple. It happened to them in the PC market. They haven’t learned. They can’t win out against a competitor who is able to achieve a greater supply.
There is no evidence for that whatsoever. That might be what they say. What the hard market figures tell us is something quite different.
The only flaw in that argument is that Apple is winning.
Of course one can argue about that as it depends on what one means by winning or losing.
If winning means shipping the most units using a certain OS platform then Android is winning but Apple has never sought to achieve market share as a primary target, or at least there doesn’t seem any evidence that market share motivates Apple. What additional advantage would Apple achieve by increasing it’s market share?
If winning means creating the most commercially successful platform both for Apple, for developers and for third party content sellers then Apple is winning. Apple seem to be able to sell as many devices as they can make and they can do so at a very good rate of profit, a trick that seems to elude almost all the OEM’s on the ‘winning’ side.
Thinking that Apple is seriously trying to stop Android devices being sold as a strategy in itself is farcical. Apple’s legal strategy has never put a dent in Android growth, won’t put a dent in Android and will never stop Android devices being sold and Apple know that. Apple are run by rational people who are pursuing a legal strategy with a rational foundation and achievable goals, you may not like it but it’s true.
Anybody who thinks that the mobile device market will be a repeat of the PC market is going to find the next few years very confusing.
Why, if it is a failure, are major players such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft following Apple’s lead and trying to build integrated products?
If you think having $150bn+ wiped of your company valuation in two months is “winning” I’d hate to see losing.
In the last two years, Apple increased it’s market capitalization roughly 150% (a bit less). In the same time frame, HTC nearly lost 50% of its market cap (a bit less, but hugely off of its highs of 2011).
https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=0&chdd=0&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=Lin…
HTC is losing. Samung is winning. Android marches on.
Meanwhile…Apple is getting slaughtered in the market.
Jobs learned absolutely nothing during his exile. He merely repeated the same unsuccessful 1980s strategy.
Is Apple really winning? Or are they starting to lose all that they gained and are now trying to hold on to with failing lawsuits?
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/08/tech/mobile/samsung-galaxy-iphone/ind…
And yes, the iPhone 5 is out and sold well upon release. However, looking at trends like this suggests that Apple will not retain that lead as Samsung will release their next model. Just pay attention to how this plays out for a few release cycles, and then we can come back here and discuss the true ‘winners’ and ‘losers’.
Edited 2012-11-12 03:55 UTC
The flaw there is that they appear to win initially, but the law of averages, weight of supply and weight of numbers is against them. It’s the PC market in the 80s all over again.
That’s why they ended up almost going out of business in the 90s and why, medium to long-term, there is no reason to believe that won’t end up happening again.
Long-term survival.
No, it really isn’t.
Apple don’t know that, or at least if they do there is little they can do about it. Holding back Android’s enormous supply is really all they can do to avoid the iPhone and iOS being marginalised as Mac hardware and MacOS was.
I’m sure Apple are run by rational people with a rational legal strategy, but their goals are simply not achievable I’m afraid. History tells us that. You might not like that but not seeing it is simply denial.
There is no evidence at all for that assertion. The fundamentals of Apple’s limited supply versus Android’s greater supply via multiple hardware suppliers and the pressure that brings to bear (lower prices, basically) is pretty clear.
Control and providing direction basically. However, Google will never stop Samsung, HTC or any other manufacturer from using Android and Microsoft will still have OEMs. Amazon are basically an Android OEM anyway.
I just don’t see any of your arguments standing up.
HTC probably figure, correctly, that the price of this is less than the price of going through litigation.
However, Apple cannot go on like this forever. The one that Apple really needs to concentrate on is Google Motorola but at the moment they’re getting distracted by Android’s other suppliers. At the moment Samsung and HTC are doing all of Google’s legal work for them while they bring out their own devices. I think Google knows that in a few year’s time Apple’s market share will have eroded to such a point that they will have other things on their mind.
Is that Apple looked around and saw Microsoft more money off Android then Google does and wants in on the cash flow.
For Jobs Android was personal, for Cook its business.
For HTC its time to focus back on business.
is multiple injunctions, and over a billion dollar in damages construed as things are going badly for Apple.
You cannot be serious.
Also, people seem to miss the point. Microsoft isn’t trying to keep Android around either. Both Apple and Microsoft have the intent of DESTROYING Android. Microsoft is just better at choosing words (they haven’t explicitly expressed a desire to go thermonuclear)
But make no mistake, Microsoft aims to make it unviable for OEMs to go after Android.
If OEMs find it financially unfeasible to create Android devices, then Android is essentially dead. Anyone who thought that the assault was exclusively focused on injunctions is naïve.
Every licensing cost that OEMs have to pay to use Android (and note: HTC now pays both Microsoft and Apple royalties for every Android device sold) makes it THAT much less attractive for them to continue to create devices for that platform.
Consider HTC who has seen profits tumble something like 70% YoY, do you REALLY think they like the idea of having additional costs when dealing with Android?
Windows Phone starts to look a lot more attractive. That’s Microsoft’s mission. It’s also (and in a weird sense) Apple’s mission, because Android is an uncontrolled beast. At least Microsoft plays by the rules of the playground with regards to licensing patents.
Examples? Most of those have been thrown out, or were easily circumvented by Samsung. Apple has won nothing so far.
…which is currently under investigation.
Nothing bizarre about this – just plain common sense. Your irrational hate is clouding your judgement.
None needed. You state “most”, which implies that some do exist. Also, I’ll note that you purposely limit your statement to “easily circumvented”.
That is highly irrelevant. The point of the legal action is to create a cloud of uncertainty and make it financially unattractive to use Android.
Being under appellate review in and of itself is NOT a negative for Apple. ANY outcome of this trial was going to go to an appeals court.
Saying that JUST because it is in appeals it is inherently doomed is misguided.
Let’s say Apple lost to Samsung for a second. Would you say that Samsung’s win was legitimate because Apple is appealing the decision? No. I suspect you’d have 12 articles a day about how Apple got rebuked by the courts.
Except they didn’t because you, the commenters on this site, and Groklaw were DEAD WRONG about how the trial would come out. You all were about as fanatical as Republicans on election day expecting Mitt Romney to win. Every poll was “biased” and the media was “lying”. Just like every juror was corrupt, the foreman was unethical, and the Judge was in the tank for Apple. Riiight.
MY irrational hate? Have you SEEN your articles lately? They’re so blatantly anti-Apple and anti-Microsoft that I doubt you’re even trying to remain objective anymore.
Just look at your other article “Goes to show who Microsoft cares about: Hint: it ain’t you.”
You’ve deteriorated into sensationalism, and the only one yet to see it is you.
Apple has more injunctions still under enforcement, injunctions granted but not under enforcement because of circumvention, injunctions granted but mooted because product is no longer offered, injunctions granted but not enforced because of appeal, injunctions granted but later overturned, injunctions of any kind, AND jury verdicts than Samsung. It has the right to ask for a permanent injunction against Samsung as a final ruling in its US guilty verdict.
By any rational legal scorecard, Apple is “winning” resoundingly. No one with any skin in the legal battle, or a basic understanding of it, thinks winning/losing is predicated on preventing market access to competition. One can argue that the legal battle has no market value, but as far as Apple or its legal adversaries winning the meaningless battle: Apple is ahead by all objective measures of legal wins/losses.
Under appeal, the court will hear arguments before determining if she will allow the argument of jury misconduct. Which would result in a retrial. The jury verdict is “final” insofar as Samsung faces a huge burden to chip away at the infringement verdict or to achieve a mistrial. Characterizing this as an “investigation” is silly.
Claiming Apple is losing in the courtroom is irrational.
Well, at least it’s enough to convince Samsung to adopt more dissimilar looking designs for their new products, which is one of Apple’s goals.
not really. The products that they are accused of copying are already off the market. This lawsuit serves little to no purpose after the fact.
I guess HTC found a convincing enough weapon, err… argument, to make Apple cooperative?
If some company just files patents for very simple and obvious things, or even worse patents things that are actually invented and implemented first by someone else. There are no any other options than go to court to see how valid those patents actually are with closer inspection.
Apple has long track record for such patents and for example Dock is one thing that Apple should never have been able to patent at the first place. I see no real similarity between the Dock used in OS X and the one in NeXTSTEP. Actually the Dock used in RISC OS is much more close to the one as used in OS X.
So lets break this down:
Apple vs HTC:
Ended in cross license deal. I don’t see this being a win for Apple as their objective was to stop Android. Android is now at 75% market starting from 0% after the launch of the iPhone.
Apple vs Motorola:
Apple was alleging FRAND violations. Apple lost its club this past week when it was revealed that Apple was not eligible for FRAND unless it offered a reciprocal deal to Motorola. Apple stated even if the court set a rate, Apple may not abide by it anyway. Also asks for delay after the facts mentioned above come out. Court throws out case with prejudice. About the only thing Apple has left here is a cross license deal. Apple definitely needs Motorola’s patents, not sure if Motorola need’s Apple’s.
Apple vs Samsung:
Apple wins case with $1 Billion in judgment. However, evidence arises that foreman was biased, and Apple may have none that he lied. At very least, jury ignored court instructions. However, jury did find that Apple had zero proof that Samsung misused its FRAND patents. Prior art was also not considered. Those will be basis of appeal. Since then, slide to unlock and bump scrolling patents have been invalidated. Other courts have found in Samsung’s favor, including the UK which ruled that Samsung didn’t copy its designs. UK sanctioned Apple for not obeying order over public apology.
I gotta say, while Apple had a bunch of early wins or preliminary judgments, they sure seem to be having a tough time recently.
If you are placing the condition on Apple that in order to win in relation to HTC, they must stop the entirety of Android as a platform cold, they are failing. But that’s a false premise and patently absurd. Particularly when HTC’s market share has precipitously declined.
Edited 2012-11-12 02:06 UTC
Yeah, though HTC’s loss was not Apple’s gain. HTC lost market share not because of Apple, but because of Samsung. Apple lost market share too, from dominance to 20%. They’re also losing share in the tablet world and the trend isn’t in their favor.
Then there’s the other parts of TechGeek’s post you didn’t comment on – basically, Apple’s only significant “victory” is a jury trial where there were several of problems with said jury. Everything else, all the injunctions that haven’t been overturned yet, they have done nothing to help Apple in terms of market share.
What percentage is “dominance” and what market are you describing?
Apple never had the dominant share of smartphones. For the first couple of years, it was Nokia and RIM and then it was briefly Apple on top but clearly Samsung was in the same league, before they were passed by Samsung. From “dominance to 20%” does not reconcile with any market share data. In the US, they’ve gone from 20% to 30+% from 2010 to 2012. Wordlwide metrics have them between 15-20% with incremental growth over the same period, some have them with small declines during the most recent product cycle lulls. No data shows Apple share collapsing from “dominance to 20%.”
Edited 2012-11-12 14:30 UTC
I’d gladly respond to this, but TechGeek sent up the warning flag that he (or at least his argument) is irrational. If HTC is “beating” Apple, despite paying Apple for patent cross-licensing and being cut in half during the same time frame that Apple doubled because Apple has failed to completely halt the growth of all Android manufacturers, there is clearly little chance that a rational argument would also convince him that Apple is also beating Motorola and Samsung in the courtroom.
You are mixing two different fact that may have no bearing on each other. Yes, HTC has lost share. But that may be more because of their own business decisions that anything Apple has done. Samsung has grown quite a bit, despite Apple’s threats. Of course, it just may be that Samsung is better able to withstand Apple’s assault due to size and Apple being a large customer. Either way, considering that HTC can now make device lawsuit free and only pay a small fee per device, I would hardly characterize this as a big win for Apple. Seems more like a draw considering Jobs “destroy Android” mentality.
As for Samsung and Motorola, if you think I missed something or got something wrong, by all means, lets hear it.
HTC used to be a big player, now they aren’t.
It doesn’t make much sense for Apple to continue to fight them, they don’t care for the small fish, they’re after the big ones. With this settlement they make some money of HTC, increasing the price of “free” Android and now they can focus more on Samsung and Motorola/Google.
Apple can’t win a guerilla war against dozens of phone manufacturers. Virtually none of them including Samsung, LG, Sony and Huawei rely heavily on their phone businesses as profit centres.
Basically Apple is betting it’s business against competitors who have very little to lose.
I would guess it has less to do with their legal setbacks than it does with a critical patent being declared invalid, while it might just be provisional that usually ends up permanent especially with all the prior art laying around. Apple did nothing more than pi$$ off a whole lot of people who have old technology laying in warehouses or basements just waiting to be shoved under the patent offices nose, I have an old DecMate VT series computer terminal that actually still works as an example and while it has nothing to do with the mobile space it just might have features that could cause Apple problems with their computers, again just an example.
I am sure there are lawyers out looking for all the prior art they can find to take down each of Apples patents they possibly can.
Apple launched a first strike, time to stop before no one is left to build products.
And we have a flame war, the article served its purpose. All this has been argued over MANY times on here, to no conclusion, so why do it again? Page views I guess, that can be the only possible reason. Whatever, I’m moving on, tired of this tactic.
hm…
“Apple’s out-of-court settlement with rival smartphone maker HTC is expected to give Apple a net licensing fee of as much as $8 per phone, and may also serve as a blueprint for future deals with Samsung and Motorola.”
Edited 2012-11-13 18:35 UTC