Several devices dodge US bans, none of the 3 patents found to be applicable
The International Trade Commission found today that HTC, ZTE and Huawei did not violate camera patents held by FlashPoint, a spinoff company of Apple. The complaint was based on four different patents (later three after one was dropped) having to do with smartphone cameras. Although a preliminary decision found that the HTC Vivid and Droid Incredible 4G LTE (to give you a reference of how old this complaint was) infringed, the final ruling based on a review that completed today showed that no devices from any of the three manufacturers infringed on the patents.
Had the companies been found to be infringing on the patents, FlashPoint would have had the opportunity to ban any infringing devices from sale in the U.S. This isn’t the first (and surely not the last) patent issue that these companies, particularly HTC, has gotten into, and it’s good to see one going the way of the defendant every once and a while. HTC has regularly been willing to settle patent issues in the past, and this is another good result for the manufacturers at play here.
Source: Reuters