Ah, here we go, another one of those lawsuits you seemingly see every single day (weeeeeeeeeeell, okay, maybe not every day) in the mobile world. I do like to see two big name companies have a pop at each other, especially when it’s Apple doing the suing, thus making them come across like the massive, arrogant, petulant bully that all non-fans agree they are. Today, the news has been about Apple deciding to sue HTC, for 20 copyright infringements “related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture, and hardware.”
Or, to use the words of Steve Jobs, “We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”
Ooh, they be mighty strong fightin’ words, there. And ironic, since HTC were making touchscreen phones long before Apple.
Of course, one of the big questions is precisely what they’re saying HTC nicked from them, since the UI on HTC phones is completely naff all like the one on the iPhone, since the iPhone, to my mind, barely has a user interface. It just has a collection of app widgets on a slidy screen. And as for hardware, I’m at a loss to figure out what they mean. If it’s capacitive, multitouch screens, then why only go after HTC, and not the other manufacturers who use them? Also, why now? Why have Apple just now decided to stick the knife into HTC, especially since some of the patents supposedly infringed are, to be frank, so vague as to be deliberately done that way? Y’know, like for instance, “List Scrolling And Document Translation, Scaling, And Rotation On A Touch-Screen Display”, which is basically what all touchscreen phones do, ever…
Well, over at Engadget Mobile, they have an intriguing and beguiling theory. They’ve noted that the suit lists damn near all of HTC’s handset, but it specifically calls out the Android ones, and not the Windows Mobile ones (with those ones, they’re listed because of the “DSP chip”). So, are Apple less bothered about HTC, and more bothered about sticking one to Google, meaning that HTC are just the poor schmoes in the middle? Or, are they possibly having a pop at HTC for making the Nexus One, a phone that kicks the iPhone’s backside in every single, conceivable way?
And is the reason they haven’t specifically called out Windows Mobile that Microsoft would utterly curbstomp them in the courts?
Anyway, this lawsuit has very little bearing on the rest of the world, so don’t worry about the HTC HD2 not being on sale in the UK any more. I tell ya this, though, if this is a first shot by Apple, across the bows of Google, Steve Ballmer must be laughing himself silly, what with Windows Phone 7 Series coming out soon, and everything. And as we all know, when it comes to the two Steves, I easily favour Ballmer, since he rocks (‘cos he’s a gobby mental, and I like the cut of his gib)…
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