Apple on Monday scored a small victory in their patent infringement lawsuit against HTC. A US trade commission ruled that HTC would be required to change the way they use phone number and date information within emails.
In their lawsuit Apple claims that the company could not allow users to tap on a phone number or date in an email to call someone or add an appointment to a calendar.
While HTC can still appeal the decision they say the functionality of their system will be changed before the ruling takes effect on April 19.
At the same time the lawsuit also dealt a blow to Apple when the court overturned a previous decision regarding the way in which HTC organizes software in its phones. HTC had worked hard to avoid the software organization patent.
In the meantime Apple’s lawsuits have ultimately been test runs for their suspected attack on Google, Inc., before he died Steve Jobs said his life goal was to “destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product.”
However since Steve Jobs attacked Google the search giant decided to acquire Motorola Mobility, Inc. which in turn provides Google with a library of more than 17,000 patents which the company could potentially use to attack Apple on a large scale.
Do you think the ridiculousness of mobile patent lawsuits has gotten out of hand? Is it time for the U.S. Government to intervene and create more stringent patent systems that ensure competition isn’t stifled?
