HTC Countersuit Against Apple Focuses On Dialer, Power Patents
In HTC's countersuit, the patents in question, according to the 32-page complaint HTC filed with the ITC, focus on dialing functions related to a user's address book and various power management issues.
"We are taking this action against Apple to protect our intellectual property, our industry partners and most importantly our customers that use HTC phones," said Jason Mackenzie, vice president of North America for HTC, in a Wednesday statement announcing the suit.
According to the complaint, the patents in questions are are as follows. Of particular note is that the last patent, one of the power control methods, was granted earlier this week.
U.S. Patent No. 6,999,800: "Method for Power Management of a Smart Phone," issued on Feb. 14, 2006, and relating to a method for "independently managing the power in a smartphone containing both phone and PDA subsystems."
U.S. Patent No. 5,541,988: "Telephone Dialler [sic] with a Personalized Page Organization of Telephone Directory Memory," issued on July 30, 1996, and relating to a "telephone dialer than can store and access information in a telephone directory"
U.S. Patent No. 6,058,183: "Telephone Dialler [sic] with a Personalized Page Organization of Telephone Directory Memory," issued on May 2, 2000, also generally related to "a telephone dialer than can store and access information in a telephone directory"
U.S. Patent No. 6,320,957,"Telephone Dialler [sic] with Easy Access Memory," issued on November 20, 2001, and also generally related to a "a telephone dialer than can store and access information in a telephone directory
U.S. Patent No. 7,716,505, "Power Control Methods for a Portable Electronic Device," issued on May 11, 2010, and related to "a power control method for a smart phone."
The choice of patents isn't so much the core issue as a likely stalling technique, suggested Charlie Wolf, an analyst with Needham & Co., in a Wednesday interview with Bloomberg. But they're enough to annoy Apple and knot up the lawsuit process -- enough for HTC, in other words, to have a way to return fire.
"I can't imagine that HTC has any patents Apple is violating. I think it's a ploy to slow the settlement process," Needham told Bllomberg.
Apple's original suit against HTC, filed in early March, accused HTC of infringing Apple-held patents focused on the user interface seen in Apple's devices, as well as related elements of Apple's iPhone hardware and architecture. At the time of the filing, Apple's real target was thought to be Google, whose Android operating system runs on a number of the phones Apple targeted in its suit.
As of mid-April, the ITC was reviewing Apple's complaint.