We all knew the details of the ten year agreement HTC and Apple made last month would eventually make its way to the public, but we did not expect a third party like Samsung to be the culprit.
When the news broke that the two technology giants were able to strike a deal, Samsung put more cash into their lawyer’s pockets to get the details of this agreement which outlines what Apple and HTC were able to shake hands on. When the document was turned over by court order to Samsung it had all of the financial details blacked out and basically showed what the two companies were not allowing versus what they are allowing.
According to TheVerge, HTC is paying for the rights to use patents relative to Apple’s software as long as it does not look exactly like it does in iOS. A good example is the slide to unlock feature. While HTC’s lock screen had never looked similar to the iPhone, the vague description in the patents held by Apple would say otherwise.
Although the two have agreed to share patents, the documentation reinforces that similarities, specifically in HTC products, will not be tolerated due to an anti-cloning clause. There’s no doubt that this is something Apple must point out after the fiasco with Samsung.
We knew that HTC would be forking over more cash between the two, but it appears that Apple may not be paying HTC anything for the next ten years while taking advantage of the patent portfolio held by HTC. We are pretty surprised about this detail, because HTC doors hold a number of patents to features one could find similar in current Apple products. Maybe this leverage was used to lower the price per device that HTC will pay Apple or maybe HTC was just ready to settle and bring the focus our of the courtroom and back to sale of their unique Windows Phone and Android devices.
Source: TheVerge via AllThingsD
It seems like HTC has the worse of the deals, but hopefully, it won’t reduce their profits too much so that they can still keep making great phones
Slide to unlock should have been invalidated.
I’m sure over time the rest of the fruits patents will be invalidated and before ten years have passed – then htc can stick the finger back at the fruit and get out of the deal – but I’m sure they want to please MS now and focus more on MS handsets rather than Android.