HTC claimed a patent victory over Apple in the latest legal battle in the ongoing smartphone patent turf war.
In a London court yesterday the judge ruled that HTC had not infringed four technologies that Apple had claimed as its own and said Apple's slide-to-unlock feature was an "obvious" development as it had already been developed by a Swedish handset company, reported the BBC.
The judgement follows another disappointing ruling for Apple last month in its case against Google. Apple was suing Google, which had purchased Motorola, over alleged infringement of Apple's smartphone patents.
But the judge threw the case out of court, saying: "Apple's argument that a tap is a zero-length swipe is silly. It's like saying that a point is a zero-length line.”
Adam Rose, partner at law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner, said the ruling did not seem surprising in hindsight. But he added that the ruling in favour of HTC was unlikely to prevent other technology companies from suing over alleged patent infringements on smartphones.
“All phone companies are desperately trying to grab their bit of the land, while repelling companies from theirs at the same time. Huge amounts of money are at stake here, and it’s not clear when it will end,” he said.
