Apple has had a number of patent disputes over the years with Android handset manufacturers, and just recently they got the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE held up at customs due to a past patent infringement lawsuit. Customs had to verify that HTC had modified the devices in a way to not infringe on Apple’s supposed patent. While that delayed things for a couple weeks, they were eventually approved and sent out to stores and pre-order customers.
Unfortunately, Apple is going after HTC yet again, filing for the same or similar patent infringement on 29 different smartphones wanting them banned for sale. That’s a heck of a lot of phones and if the Taiwanese company was found to not have complied, it could potentially lose them out on a lot of business.
If you’re not familiar, the patent that Apple is talking about is a “system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data” and basically is what powers the menu options of a device.
So which phones could be affected? According to Android Community, the HTC One X, HTC One S, HTC One V, HTC Inspire 4G, HTC Vivid, HTC Status, HTC Sensation, HTC Sensation 4G, HTC Wildfire, HTC Wildfire S, HTC Hero, HTC Hero S, HTC EVO 4G LTE, HTC EVO 4G, HTC EVO V 4G, HTC EVO Design 4G, HTC EVO 3D, HTC Amaze 4G, HTC DROID Incredible 4G LTE, HTC myTouch 4G, HTC myTouch 4G Slide, HTC Merge, HTC Rezound, HTC Rhyme, HTC ThunderBolt, HTC Flyer, HTC Jetstream, HTC EVO View 4G, and the DROID Incredible 2 by HTC.
Yeah, a lot of phones. As with the issue before, HTC will hopefully have complied and be fine. With the iPhone 5 coming up, it almost seems that Apple is trying to ruthlessly remove their competition from the marketplace. While they’re throwing all sorts of money at lawyers and lawsuits, Android devices are selling and will continue to sell.