HTC, the Taiwan smartphone maker sued earlier this month by Apple for alleged patent infringement, said on Thursday that it “disagrees with Apple’s legal actions and will fully defend itself”.
The statement is HTC’s first official response to the lawsuit, but HTC’s statement reveals relatively little about the company’s planned legal strategy. HTC did not say how and when it would make a formal legal response to Apple’s suit.
The statement, however, did emphasise a long list of HTC’s technological ’firsts’ that predate the iPhone.
HTC said it started designing the world’s first colour touch screen smartphone, called the XDA, in 1999. The XDA launched in 2002, five years before the iPhone’s launch in 2007.
The company also claims to have sold the first touch-screen smartphone in the US – the T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone in 2002 as well as the first gesture-based smartphone.
“From day one, HTC has focused on creating cutting-edge innovations that deliver unique value for people looking for a smartphone,” Peter Chou, HTC’s chief executive, said in Wednesday’s statement.
“We will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible,” he said.
Apple’s suit had alleged that HTC phones, including the Nexus One it made for Google, violated 20 of Apple’s patents. The US group has asked the US International Trade Commission and a Delaware court to ban HTC sales in the US.
Analysts and industry executives, however, see the suit as an indirect way for Apple to challenge Google’s Android mobile phone platform, which has been gaining in popularity.
For HTC, the lawsuit helped raise the former contract manufacturer’s public profile in Europe and the US just as it began focusing on brand-building. It launched its first ever global advertising campaign last October.
With HTC, Apple and Google all saying little else about the lawsuit so far, it remains unclear how this will all play out in the end.
