HTC, the smartphone manufacturer which may be banned from selling its Android handsets in the US, has said it is willing to discuss a resolution to its long-running patent disputes with Apple, according to Bloomberg.
‘We have to sit down and figure it out,’ said Winston Yung, chief financial officer of HTC. ‘We’re open to having discussions.’
The apparent change of heart from HTC follows an initial determination by the US International Trade Commission last week which ruled that HTC had infringed two Apple patents.
If the verdict is upheld at a full hearing in December, it could result in a ban on HTC Android handsets being imported to the US. HTC shares fell by 6.5% immediately after the verdict was announced.
‘We are open to all sorts of solutions, as long as the solution and the terms are fair and reasonable,’ Yung said. ‘On and off we’ve had discussions with Apple, even before the initial determination came out.’
The problem for HTC, however, is that it has little to bargain with in terms of its own patent portfolio. And if Apple decides that it doesn’t want a licence fee for the patents infringed by HTC, the discussions my come to a swift end. As patent expert, Florian Mueller puts it: ‘It’s a fallacy to assume that Apple v. HTC is just the usual patent dispute between two large players, and therefore going to have the same kind of happy end. This one is different.’
