14 DAY TRIAL // HTC Corporation, the manufacturer of a number of popular smartphones running Google’s Android operating system, has countersued Apple over the infringements of five patents.
The move comes as a response to Apple’s original suit filed in March against HTC for violating over 20 of the iPhone maker’s patents. HTC was vocal in March saying it disagreed with said legal actions. The Taiwan-based vendor of smartphones also reiterated its commitment to creating a portfolio of innovative handsets that, according to the company, “gives consumers a variety of choices.”
HTC filed its complaint with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) and requested that Apple halted the importation and sale of the iPhone, iPad and iPod in the United States, according to an official HTC report.
“As the innovator of the original Windows Mobile PocketPC Phone Edition in 2002 and the first Android smartphone in 2008, HTC believes the industry should be driven by healthy competition and innovation that offer consumers the best, most accessible mobile experiences possible,” Jason Mackenzie, vice president of North America, HTC Corporation, said. “We are taking this action against Apple to protect our intellectual property, our industry partners, and most importantly our customers that use HTC phones.”
A report over at phandroid.com offers a summary of the five patents in question, noting that the patents mainly concern power management and the phone’s directory access. More interestingly, it points out, the most recent invention secured by HTC (No. 7,716,505) was only awarded two days ago. Two of the five HTC patents’ descriptions (as presented by the source) are reproduced below for our readers. U.S. PATENT NO. 6,999,800 Method for power management of a smart phone A method for power management of a smart phone having a power system, a mobile phone system operated in a standby, sleep, connection or off mode, and a PDA system operated in a normal, sleep or off mode.
U.S. PATENT NO. 7,716,505 Power control methods for a portable electronic device A power control method for a portable electronic device. The portable electronic device comprises a power supply unit and a volatile memory for storing data when the power supply unit supplies power thereto. First, the portable electronic device is set to enter a deep sleep mode. Then, data accessed from the volatile memory is transferred to a non-volatile memory. Finally, except for maintaining sufficient power to restore the device, the power supply unit is turned off.
The report goes to include U.S. PATENT NO. 5,541,988, which is for “Telephone dialler with a personalized page organization of telephone directory memory;” U.S. PATENT NO. 6,058,183 for “Telephone dialler with a personalized page organization of telephone;” and “U.S. PATENT NO. 6,320,957 for “Telephone dialler with easy access memory.”