After years of battling in courtrooms, Apple and HTC announced that they have reached a global settlement to finish their patent battle. Both mobile manufacturers signed a 10-year license agreement for the current and future patents held by them. But the exact terms and conditions of the agreement haven’t been made public.
Both the chief executives of the manufacturers reported the statements welcoming the settlement.
“HTC is pleased to have resolved its dispute with Apple, so HTC can focus on innovation instead of litigation,” said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC.
“We are glad to have reached a settlement with HTC,” said Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. “We will continue to stay laser focused on product innovation.”
Both the manufacturers spent millions of dollars in ongoing lawsuits particularly to smartphone patents for the Apple’s iPhone and HTC’s Android devices. The patent dispute between them began in March 2010. Initially, Apple filed a complaint against HTC with the U.S. International Trade Commission reporting that the Taiwanese Corporation HTC is infringing 20 Apple of its patents and said in a statement “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”
Almost two months after Apple filed against HTC, the rival HTC accused Apple of infringing on 5 patents related to its mobile technology and asked the ITC to stop the import and sale of Apple’s iPad, iPod, and iPhone. HTC complained Apple was infringing on its patents related to general hardware and software in mobile devices. Again, HTC filed another lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Delaware claiming that Apple is violating two patents by selling its line of Mac computers and other devices.
We also think that the settlement between the companies will bring a better result in product innovation instead of litigation by spending millions of dollars again. We hope Samsung and Apple will do the same.