Aims at tougher measures

Apple is appealing a US International Trade Commission ruling on its first complaint against HTC, notes FOSS Patents. The appeal is actually said to have been filed with the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on December 29th, but remained out of the limelight until it was referenced today in a filing with the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. There Apple is trying to assert a real-time API patent against Motorola, and told the court that an administrative law judge agreed with Apple's construction of the term "realtime application programming interface," but that the ITC "reversed the ALJ's construction."

Motorola argued that the ITC decision should be considered by the District Court, but Apple countered by saying that "[the ITC] Commission's decision is on appeal to the Federal Circuit and has no preclusive effect in this [District] Court." In terms of HTC, Apple is at least believed to be trying to increase the scope of an ITC import ban by including the real-time API patent. An Apple appellate brief has yet to be made public, and so the company's exact plans are unknown.

Apple may also be seeking to reverse the ITC's rejection of claims relating to two patents; one of the patents was simply ruled invalid, while the other was deemed to be neither infringed by HTC nor used by Apple. Measures imposed on HTC after the ruling were relatively lenient, for example giving HTC two extra months to modify products, and skipping a cease-and-desist order, although as the complaint is almost two years old the latter would be purely symbolic if Apple demanded it.

The company is rumored to have spent as much as $100 million in its first legal campaign against HTC. In the end it scored just one favorable judgment, which HTC may be able to cope with without any major redesigns.

By Electronista Staff