Wednesday, June 13, 2012

HTC withdraws Federal Circuit appeal against ITC dismissal of complaint against Apple

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:

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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