By now, most of us are aware of HTC’s licensing deal with Apple that’s speculated to pay out between $6 and $8 per HTC phone. Samsung wants to exactly what that licensing deal covered. Why, you ask? If Apple licensed it’s “user-experience patents” to HTC, it could completely change these patent wars. Before, Apple has refused to license those user-experience patents, but if they were licensed to HTC but not offered to Samsung, well… I’m sure you can imagine that doesn’t look too great in the courtroom.
On Friday, Samsung demanded to reveal the specifics of that licensing deal, because they are “almost certain” that it includes some patents that are at play in the Samsung/Apple lawsuit. Generally, a judge won’t issue an injunction if the issue can be resolved through licensing. Apple, Samsung, and HTC all declined to comment. Ron Laurie, managing director of Inflexion Point Strategy and a veteran IP lawyer, stated that it would be pretty unlikely for HTC to accept the terms of the licensing deal if it didn’t include all of those patents. I guess we’ll find out if the details of that licensing deal surface. I’m interested to see exactly how that’s going to play out.
source: Reuters
