The US International Trade Commission (ITC) said on Friday that it would investigate a patent infringement complaint by Taiwan-based mobile phone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) against Apple Inc.
HTC, the target of a patent suit by Apple in March alleging infringement of iPhone patents, filed a complaint with the Washington-based ITC last month seeking a ban on imports of Asian-manufactured iPhones, iPods and iPads into the US.
HTC alleged that Apple products infringed five HTC patents and seeks to have them barred from being imported into the US from their manufacturing facilities in Asia.
The ITC, an independent US agency that has the power to ban imports, said in a statement that it had agreed to open an investigation “of certain portable electronic devices and related software” based on the complaint filed by HTC.
HTC, which stands for High Tech Computer Corp, is Taiwan’s leading smartphone maker. The company makes handsets for a number of leading US companies and is the manufacturer of the Nexus One, unveiled by Apple rival Google in January.
Apple in March accused HTC of infringing on 20 Apple patents related to the “user interface, underlying architecture and hardware” of the iPhone.
Apple, which is based in Cupertino, California, filed the lawsuit in a US District Court in the state of Delaware and with the ITC.
In the suit, Apple, which has sold more than 50 million iPhones worldwide, asked for unspecified damages and an injunction to prevent HTC from making or selling products using the patents in dispute.
Meanwhile, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will open an investigation to determine if Apple Inc’s mobile software business practices are squashing competitors, according to a report published on Friday.
The Wall Street Journal said the FTC will start an investigation, citing people familiar with the situation. The newspaper said that the FTC has been working with the US Department of Justice for weeks to decide which agency will review allegations from companies complaining of being barred from the mobile platform that runs its iPhone and iPad devices.
Apple’s newest version of its mobile operating system, iOS4, will be released later this month, as well as a new iPhone.
Apple rival Google Inc is among the companies that are increasingly agitated with the iPhone maker, as new restrictions that are part of iOS4 may hamper Google’s ability to sell and place ads on devices that run the software.
On Wednesday, Omar Hamoui, the head of Google’s newly acquired mobile ad service, AdMob, attacked the restrictions as a threat to competition.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by