Apple and HTC to End Legal Battle

This Saturday, Apple Inc. and HTC Corp agreed to a settlement in their legal battle. “Apple and HTC settle global patent battle” by Dan Levine of Reuters.com reports both agreed to a “10-year licensing agreement that ends one of the first major conflagrations of the smartphone patent wars”.

This comes a few months after Samsung lost to Apple in one of their patent legal battles. Tim Cook has expressed to media outlets that he offered licensing agreements to Samsung and other companies before pursuing legal efforts. Samsung’s $1.05 billion loss and the cost of fighting a multi-year international case likely encouraged HTC to settle rather than continue the case. The article reports Apple had been able “to actually disrupt the flow of products into the crucial U.S. market”. With the licensing agreement, HTC should be able to bring more products into the market.