Patent Law Practice Center

ITC on HTC: The Possible U.S. Ban on Android Phones

Tomorrow, the International Trade Commission will issue its decision regarding whether or not HTC infringed Apple’s patents in producing Android phones. Six months ago, an ITC administrative law judge ruled that HTC had in fact infringed Apple’s patents. The decision to come down this Wednesday, December 14, is in response to HTC’s appeal. The patents in question are U.S. Patent No. 5,946,647, a patent on a “system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data”, and U.S. Patent No. 6,343,263, a patent on a “real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data”. Essentially, these patents are at the core of the Android operating system, which means that HTC may not be the only manufacturer to be impacted by the ITC’s decision as they are not the only ones using the Android system. (more…)