Could HTC Be Forced To Remotely Cripple Smartphones?

on 03/03/2010, filed in Home > CellPhones

By now you’ve probably read about the latest patent tiff between Apple and HTC, but what about the implications of such a suit? According to an intellectual property expert, one of the potential outcomes of this case is that the courts could rule that existing handsets (such as the Nexus One, Hero, Droid etc) must be remotely downgraded to remove the disputed functionality. Such a case has happened before, where TiVo and EchoStar had a dispute, which resulted in EchoStar having to arrange for a remote software change on all affected machines, stripping them of existing features. Of course, if HTC were to be forced to remotely remove any juicy features of existing phones, you can expect a collective roar of anger to rise from existing users. What do you think will be the outcome of this case? A single party winning, or a settlement?

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Android: Android is the mobile operating system from Google. The software was originally built by a company called Android Inc, that was purchased by Google in 2005. From its modest debuts, Android has become a powerhouse that powers not only smartphones and tablet, but a host of other less high-profile devices and gadgets. Although Android is not a community-driven project, Google does release the source code as open-source under the Apache license. You can follow Ubergizmo on Android with Google Currents.

Apple Inc: Apple Inc was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne as a computer company wich is often credited to have initiated personal computing. After a meteoric rise in the 80s, Apple had lost the personal computing battle against Microsoft and others in the 90s. But in the late 90s and early 2000s, the company came back to profitability by focusing on less products and started using industry-standard components. Apple's largest business is now in the smartphone space, with the iPhone representing more than half of the revenues and an even larger part of the profits. Read our Apple product reviews to see what the company has been up to: iPhone 5 Review, Macbook Pro with Retina display review

Google: Google is an Internet Search company with profits mainly derived from its AdWords advertising program. Google is also known for other high-profile web-related products such as Chrome, GMail, Google Docs or Google Map, and it has also made a very successful entry into the mobile handset market with its Android mobile operating system. The company was created in 1998 and went public in 2004. Google is one of the most visited site in the world.

HTC: High Tech Computer Corporation (HTC) is a Taiwanese manufacturer of smartphones and tablets. The company started as an ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) that was building devices for others, but went on making HTC-branded smartphones based mostly on Microsoft's Windows operating system (OS) for mobile. In 2009, it began to shift its core focus away from Windows mobile devices to Android-based ones. In 2010 the company went back to the Windows Phone eco-system.

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