Smartphone company HTC drops a patent appeal vs. Appeal

HTC Corp. dropped its appeal of a U.S. International Trade Commission patent case over mobile-phone technology that it lost against Apple Corp. (Nasdaq: AAPL), according to a notice posted on the court’s website.

The trade agency in February said that Apple wasn’t violating HTC’s patent rights over a way to control how mobile phones manage power supply. HTC sought the dismissal of its appeal May 31 and the request was granted today, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington.

“We respect the ruling and have made the decision to focus on other pending cases at this time,” HTC said in an e-mailed statement today.

[HTC operates a research and development office in Durham, N.C.]

The companies have other cases against each other pending at the trade agency, and HTC is appealing a finding that it infringed an Apple patent, according to court and trade agency dockets. In the case won by Apple, some of HTC’s phones were held up at the U.S. border last month to ensure the company had removed a feature for data detection that was found to violate Apple’s patent.

Android Cases

In a separate case Taoyuan, Taiwan-based HTC filed against Apple, an ITC judge on June 8 threw out five of the patents, leaving three remaining. HTC had obtained the five patents from Google Inc., whose Android operating system is the most popular platform for mobile devices.

“We believe the judge’s decision is erroneous as a matter of law and will appeal the ruling to the Commission,” HTC said today. “We are confident in our ownership of the patents, and that Apple infringes our intellectual property. We look forward to presenting our case on the remaining patents to the judge at trial later this year.”

Cupertino, California-based Apple, which developed its own operating system for the iPhone and iPad, is trying to curtail the growth of Android. Apple has patent-infringement disputes at the trade agency with Android-device makers Samsung Electronics Co. and Motorola Mobility Holdings, now a unit of Google, as well as HTC.