Four months ago, the ITC dismissed a complaint HTC had brought against Apple in May 2010. The original complaint related to five patents. HTC withdrew one, and the ITC did not hold Apple to infringe any of the asserted claims from the four remaining ones. HTC almost immediately appealed the ITC ruling to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), but it apparently concluded that this wasn't worth pursuing. Here's an excerpt from the CAFC's daily disposition sheet (click on the image to enlarge):
The docket shows that HTC had brought its motion to dismiss on May 31 (click on the image to enlarge):
I think HTC did the right thing. I never believed that its first complaint against Apple had merit. HTC could certainly have afforded to continue with the appeal, but it would only have annoyed the CAFC and the ITC. And both the CAFC and the ITC are going to soon adjudicate matters that are much more important to HTC:
HTC is going to request a Commission review of an ITC judge's dismissal of five patents it borrowed from Google to sue Apple. The Commission is the six-member decision-making body at the top of the ITC. And if the Commission affirms the judge's initial determination, HTC may appeal that question to the CAFC.
HTC has an appeal pending against the import ban Apple won in December 2011 over the "data tapping" patent and must fend off Apple's appeal, which could widen the scope of that ban through an appeal of the parts of the ITC ruling that weren't in Apple's favor.
HTC must defend itself against two other ITC complaints filed by Apple, one from last summer and another one that Apple filed last week to enforce the December 2011 ruling against 29 new HTC devices.
HTC is now going to complete its acquisition of S3 Graphics. S3G appealed the ITC's dismissal of its first complaint against Apple. That appeal is less of a long shot than the appeal HTC withdrew today given that the initial determination looked like a partial victory for S3G - not a huge breakthrough, but better than nothing.
In September 2011, S3G brought a second ITC complaint against Apple.
There's also some litigation involving Apple, HTC and S3G in Germany, and a defensive case that HTC brought in the UK, just to complete the story.
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