06.12.10

ITC Considers Whether to Ban Apple Products After Apple Sued Linux (Android)

Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Law, Patents at 7:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The International Trade Commission (ITC) is looking at HTC’s complaint and the Motorola-RIM patent fight is settled amidst ITC involvement

Apple is having a hard time with the FTC (for potential antitrust/anti-competitive abuses) and ITC too. It’s part of the mobile patent wars and earlier this month we explained why Apple is the ‘bad guy’ in that regard. Despite being the company which admits "stealing" other people's ideas, Apple has to nerve to bully other companies, alleging that they — not Apple — are “stealing”. Several months ago we saw Apple suing Android/Linux without any prior provocation. Apple targeted HTC, one of the largest distributors of Linux (in the form of Android). In response to this (defensive action because Apple did the same thing first), HTC filed complaint with the ITC and it goes forward according to the latest news:

A U.S. trade panel will investigate allegations made by HTC Corp that Apple infringes its technology, as HTC seeks to win a ban on the U.S. sale of iPhones, iPads and iPods.

More coverage in:

In other news, “Motorola and Research In Motion settle [their] dispute” (in which the ITC was involved).

Handset makers Motorola Inc. and Research In Motion Ltd. said Friday they have settled a patent complaint over mobile technology that Motorola brought to the U.S. International Trade Commission earlier this year.

More coverage of this can be found in:

The ideal solution is to ban software patents, not to use the ITC to ban a competitor’s product. █

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