What is interesting about this specific piece is that it draws attention to the patent strategy (a combination of Utiltiy and design patents and registered trade dress) Apple used to protect it’s IP and then prosecute it’s case against Samsung and hence there are lessons to be learnt.

Obviously HTC is an innovator, or Apple would not have made a cross-licensing deal with it (your article states that “[t]he license extends to current and future patents held by both parties”).

Still, I am not so sure that this signals a possible end to the patent wars. Apple still seems to have it bad for Samsung and Motorola, to the point it was arguing that it would never even offer licenses covering some of these same patents to Samsung as it has just done for HTC. And of course Samsung and Motorola are simply proxies for Google, which Apple hasn’t even gone after yet.

Add to that the fact that the USPTO keeps issuing patent protection for completely ridiculous “innovations,” such as Apple’s “rubber-band” patent, a part of that $1 billion verdict you mentioned in the article that was also recently invalidated by the USPTO, I don’t see the war cooling down any time soon.

As for treating HTC as an innovator – well it depends, it obviously has some very desireable 4G patents that Apple, prior to the settlement, was trying to invalidate. Also events have turned out the agreement between Apple and HTC does seem very favourable to HTC, particularly when set against Apple’s battle with Samsung; so I think that Apple regards HTC as more than a copier.

Your logic seems rather poor as well. HTC pays licenses to both Microsoft and Apple and you want to treat them as an innovator? Interesting. Where is the logic in that?

-Gene

Given the wide publicity given to patents of user interface features such as “slide to unlock”, I’ll be interested to see if there is a change in the nature and quantity of software patents that are now being filed – perhaps we can expect a software patents war in circa 2020?

Yes, I agree the battles between Apple v other smartphone vendors and hardware component manufacturers seem to be coming to an end. However, we are starting to see a new round of litigation that focuses on software used in smartphones, based on patents typically filed in 2001~2005 and given patent status by the USPTO broadly in 2005~2010. All of these effectively going for the mass market mobile software plaforms, specifically: iOS, Android and Windows, that have come to market since 2005. Although, given that many of the plantiff’s are smaller companies and/or patent portfolio holders I doubt the level of litigation will be as great as those Apple specifically has engaged in todate.