HTC takes a swipe at Apple in ongoing dispute

MOBILE phone company HTC has lodged a patent complaint against Apple in an escalating legal battle.

Apple is involved in an escalating battle over phone patents.

MOBILE phone company HTC has filed a patent complaint against Apple over its popular gadgets as part of an escalating a legal dispute.

HTC, which makes a range of smart phone rivals to Apple's iPhone, filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission seeking to block US sales of the iPhone, iPod and iPad.

The complaint comes after Apple filed its own lawsuits against HTC in March, saying HTC's phones violate 20 of Apple's iPhone patents.

Apple's complaints were made before the trade commission and in US District Court in Wilmington, Delaware.

None of the complaints is likely to block sales of any products any time soon.

Patent disputes are common among technology companies and often take years to resolve. The cases often lead to licensing agreements rather than outright bans on imports, as HTC is seeking in its complaint. Apple's products are typically made overseas.

The wild success of the first iPhone, which launched in 2007, prompted other phone makers to rush out touch-screen smart phones of their own in a bid to lure consumers, not just business users attached to their BlackBerry phones.

At the end of 2009, iPhones made up about 14 per cent of smart phones sold worldwide, according to the research group Gartner.

Apple closed the gap with BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, which had 20 per cent of sales.

But smart phones running Google's Android software, while accounting for only 4 per cent of sales, grew at a faster rate than Apple last year. HTC makes several smart phones running Android.

In the filing, HTC said Apple violates five of its patents. In one, the technology helps prolong battery life by letting the phone system operate independently from the gadget's other functions. The phone might be in "sleep" mode while other programs are active.

In another, stored information is moved between different kinds of memory depending on how much juice is left in the battery.

The other three patents relate to how the phones store numbers, then look them up and dial them.

Apple had no comment on HTC's complaint, other than to point to its own legal actions against the company.

Android phones, like the iPhone, support multitouch screens. Users sweep their fingers across the screens, and different "gestures" stand for different commands.

Among the patents singled out by Apple in its case against HTC is one that lets a device's screen detect more than one finger touch at a time – for instance, allowing someone to zoom in or out by spreading their fingers apart or pinching them together.

Another patent refers to technology that helps a device react to information about its surroundings gathered by sensors.

HTC signed a patent-licensing agreement with Microsoft in April, presumably to avoid a legal tussle with another of the computer industry's biggest players.

Even though Google owns the software powers Android phones, hardware makers such as HTC will bear the brunt of the legal actions. Industry experts say that has historically been the case.

They also note that HTC is an easier target than Google for US lawsuits.

A direct challenge to Google could devolve into a broader dispute over the open-source software approach that Google espouses. That approach involves letting a community of programmers freely use and improve the Android software. By contrast, Apple supports a closed system in which it retains legal rights and controls.

Even if a legal decision is a long time coming, Apple's move against HTC could dampen enthusiasm among phone manufacturers for Android, if it appears that hefty legal fees could erase the gains made from using free software from Google.