Apple, HTC settlement covers utility patents only
updated 05:40 am EST, Thu December 6, 2012
Apple may not be paying HTC anything for use of its patents
The 10-year patent deal between Apple and HTC has been revealed in heavily redacted form, thanks to Samsung’s legal team. Among the details revealed include the patents that the two companies have agreed to cross-license, revealing that Apple has given HTC access to certain iOS utility patents. HTC does not, however, have any access to Apple design patents as part of the deal.
Not revealed in the version made public, includes the products covered by the agreement between the two companies, nor does it reveal the financial details of the arrangement. Hardware and software patents that Apple was prepared to give ground to HTC on included only those that would not in anyway allow HTC to create products that tread on the “Distinctive Apple User Experience.”
Anti-cloning agreements have also been covered meaning that HTC is free to use the specified Apple patents, provided that they don’t culminate in a user experience that too closely imitates Apple’s. This is very similar to the existing arrangement that Apple has in place with Microsoft for aspects of its Windows 8 UI design elements that draw from Apple’s patents. While directions are expressed as to how HTC is to pay Apple, conspicuous by its absence are any details on how Apple might pay HTC. This leaves open the possibility that Apple is not paying HTC the use of any of its patents.
Samsung aims to scour the details of the agreement between Apple and HTC to see if there are any grounds for averting a sales embargo on its products following its record $1.049 billion court loss to Apple. Samsung was successful in petitioning Judge Paul S. Grewal to force Apple to hand over the unredacted agreement to Samsung’s lawyers for review. Judge Lucy Koh, who presided over Samsung’s court loss, subsequently also ruled that the Apple and HTC deal could also be made public, however, only under the condition that the terms of the financial settlement remain undisclosed. [via AllThingsD]
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Put your Man pants on and pay up, Samsung! You lost, you continue to lose...now pay up.