One Obvious Question for HTC CEO Peter Chou at D8: How About Them Apple (Patents)?

Before Apple lobbed a patent infringement lawsuit at Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC yesterday, we were lucky to get its CEO, Peter Chou, to agree to appear at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June to talk about its work making smartphones for Google and others.

That interview with Chou (pictured above) obviously got a whole lot more interesting with the epic legal action by Apple (AAPL) alleging that HTC infringed some 20 patents related to the iPhone’s graphical user interface, underlying architecture and hardware.

Wrote Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski:

“The company is asking for a permanent injunction barring HTC from importing or selling infringing phones in the U.S., along with triple damages and maximum interest.

‘We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,’ Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a press release announcing the action. ‘We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.’”

HTC denied the allegations, not surprisingly, and was backed up in a statement of support by Google (GOOG). That is also not a surprise, since its Android operating system, which is in the HTC-made Nexus One phone, is mentioned prominently in the lawsuit.

Whatever happens, it all makes for what is likely to be a head-spinning technology rumble over the next months and underscores how important the burgeoning mobile arms race and the fight over innovation will be.

Until we get Chou in an onstage interview at D8 to talk about this and much more, here is a video of MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka talking about yesterday’s Apple action on the new Digits Live Show on WSJ.com:

lrd555

With the pending launch of the iPAD but a few weeks away, Apple had to make it perfectly clear that they will not tolerate HTC or Google or anyone else copying their efforts verbatim, piece by piece, in order to quickly catch-up to the years of effort that went into making these devices.

Apple's got $40 billion in cash, and I say clear out a wing, hire a group of lawyers to take on HTC another to take Nokia and a 3rd to take on Kodak. Right size each group as the cases proceed.

Be prepared to spend $1 to $2B. This action should be viewed by Apple as important as creating the devices themselves.

In the long run, it may be the best investment Apple can make with its humongous horde of cash.

Really- stop the patent infringements now and many more billions will come later.
JohnDoey

I hope HTC is sued out of existence. There needs to be an incentive for investors to hire designers and inventors and creative people, not just hire engineers and get them to copy what's already out there.

When it came out that Nexus One was just another HTC clone phone, the air went out of the launch. People have been begging Google for a Google-made phone for years.
http://www.swift2.blogspot.com Swift2

So, I don't really understand too much about patent law. Maybe it has become too vague and general. I don't know exactly how you'd write a new law either. But until they stop giving out patents for things that might seem obvious, then companies have to fight it out with laws as they are. Surely, Apple and other companies have to pay tribute to the lowlife patent miners, because the law says they must.

But just one little carp about Google, for the people who see it as “open.” How closely do they guard their secret search sauce? Very. So, why did they go into the phone business? To multiply the search money they get. Why give it away free? They spent millions for Android, and millions more to develop it. Is it out of the goodness of their hearts? Why, no, I don't think it is. It's just that their own interests are a little more hidden than Apple's or any of the other entrants in the smartphone market. Sure, they open-sourced Android. For some very green reasons, and I don't mean ecological green. They are selling our eyeballs to advertisers, and they're just making it easier for a lot of manufacturers to give them more search money.

Didn't that used to be called “dumping”?

One Obvious Question for HTC CEO Peter Chou at D8: How About Them Apple (Patents)?

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