By Mark Fury on December 20th, 2011 11:39 AM

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) today ruled that HTC devices with clickable phone numbers (e.g. in the web browser, or an email) that launch the phones dialler app should be banned for violating Apple’s patents. The ruling bans HTC from selling devices with this feature, from April 19th 2012 onwards. HTC has told Mashable that they plan to release an update, to remove the feature from their devices.

“We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it. However, the ‘647 patent is a small UI experience, and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon.”

This may be a relatively small feature to remove, though it is one that the general public has come to expect with smartphones, and will put HTC at a competitive disadvantage. The ruling is a big symbolic victory for Apple, since it deals with how Android itself works, and is not actually software specific to HTC. This means that Apple has the power to go after any Android manufacturer that has this feature on their devices. We may see Android manufacturers voluntarily remove this feature, to avoid a patent lawsuit against Apple.

If this feature was to be exclusive to Apple devices, would it have any effect on your purchasing decision?

Source: Mashable

Filed Under: Android, Apple, HTC

Tags: Android, Apple, HTC, patent lawsuit

Damon Lewis

How the hell can someone get a patent on this?
Remco de Ket

@Damon; somebody had to invent this, and in this case that somebody was Apple. I guess we should be grateful it wasn’t Microsoft. None the less the code that was used to create this functionality is protected by copyright and if it is used by simply copying the code without permission then there is a case to be made. If the Android community (Google) had come up with its own unique code solution for this functionality Apple wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on.

Damon Lewis

If they copied the code then sure, apple will win but from what I understand Apple are going after the ‘concept’ (Just like Apple tried to sue for “slide to unlock”).

Remco de Ket

If the concept of an invention is unique then the concept is protected as well as the implementation. For instance if A invented the skippy ball and made it out of rubber then B can’t simply make the same thing out of pvc and add ears instead of a loop to hang on to and escape copyright infringement. Of course by suing in an American court Apple ensured that they had a friendly jurisdiction. This ruling only has standing in the US of A not withstanding the “international trade commission” moniker. So the rest of the world could still get the “click to dial” functionality (and probably will) and in due course HTC or Google will find a way around this. In any case this ruling affects only Android 1.6 to 2.2 so it’s nothing much to get excited about really.

fred nurke

they have not been charged with copying the code they have been charged with copying the concept
also apple didn’t even invent it i had that feature on some dumbphones years ago. hell, the old sidekick tsr (in the days of DOS) could do this

chubacca

asif skype did not do this first!! F U APPLE.
Heyhappy

apple is just a bunch of asses don’t they make enough already
Sean Cole

Skype had this way back. IT sure will affect my buying decision, Never buy Apple and Never let friends buy Apple.

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