ITC Absolves Apple of HTC Infringement Charges

The International Trade Commission has thrown out the first of two HTC infringement complaints against Apple, the one filed in May of 2010. ITC commissioners last Friday upheld the findings of the agency’s administrative law judge last year. He found that Apple doesn’t infringe any of four asserted HTC patents. HTC only appealed on one of the patents. Patent follower Florian Mueller observes that “Smartphone-related patents have a very high drop-out rate at the ITC. In my observation, only about one out of 20 asserted patents is deemed violated. The challenges that patent holders face at the ITC have contributed to the popularity of certain German courts, especially the Mannheim Regional Court and the Munich I Regional Court, among patent plaintiffs.”

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