Apple facing roadblocks from HTC

Apple has been looking pretty hard at its LTE patent portfolio and has been trying to grow it as much as possible, but if it is going to have any significant impact in LTE with its new iPhone (due to be revealed Wednesday, officially), the roadblocks. One potential one was already announced by Samsung Electronics, Co. Ltd., which has already stated that it is prepared to sue Apple for using some of its LTE

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) seems to be running an uphill battle against HTC, if preliminary feedback from the judge in the case is any indication. Apple is contending that some of the HTC patents are invalid because of the timing of the purchase of them, but the judge has indicated a likelihood that he would allow HTC to maintain possession of them, saying to Apple’s counsel, “I don’t care if they bought these patents to sue you or not.” HTC is suing on some of its LTE patents, on the claim that several of them have to be used by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in order for its iPhone to work on an LTE network, and that patent use

HTC bought the patents as part of a portfolio in April 2011, and very shortly thereafter sued Apple claiming a pre-emptive strike to protect its patents from “aggressive tactics.” Not all is rosy for HTC, however, as the judge has not granted HTC control over some of its patents that it bought

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), saying there were questions regarding the agreement between the companies and However, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been warned that it will have to provide “clear and convincing” evidence that the HTC patents it’s challenging are invalid, and that there seems to be evidence in the other direction. “Clear and convincing means something to me. … I have to be pretty darn certain a U.S. patent is invalid,” said the judge.