Apple’s cold war with Google just heated up.
The iPhone maker on Tuesday announced what appears to be a proxy battle against Google in the form of a pair of legal complaints for patent infringement against Taiwan mobile phone manufacturer HTC, a Google partner. The complaints seek not only monetary damages against HTC but to bar it from importing and selling in the United States any of its phones based on Google’s Android operating system.
That could cause Google a good deal of pain, even though the company isn’t a defendant in either action. HTC manufactured the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1, and Google’s own recently launched Nexus One, and it has shipped more devices running Android than any other manufacturer.
Patents cited by Apple cover, among other things, technologies related to how the iPhone’s touch screen works, how users unlock the gadget by sliding their finger across its screen, how documents are displayed on it, and how different parts of the iPhone’s underlying operating system interact with each other.
Apple’s legal actions are the sharpest blows yet in its increasingly bitter relationship with Google, which has deteriorated from one of close collaboration to rivalry. Although Google provides several of the native applications that ship with Apple’s iPhone, devices based on Android compete directly with the iPhone.
While Apple’s phones have far outsold Android ones to date, some analysts think Android devices will soon outpace iPhones and grab an increasing portion of the smartphone market. So it’s not surprising that Apple would try to defend its turf, analysts said.
“They’re starting to see some competition for the iPhone and they’re starting to be worried about it,” said Michael Risch, who focuses on patent law as an associate professor at the West Virginia University College of Law.
Apple’s actions took the form of a lawsuit filed in federal district court in Delaware and a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission. The company charges that HTC infringed 20 of its patents altogether, 10 of which are a part of the suit and 10 of which are cited in the ITC complaint.
In a statement, Apple portrayed the suit as a means to defend its intellectual property — not its market position.
“We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
HTC declined to comment, saying in a statement that it learned of Apple’s complaints through media reports and hadn’t yet reviewed them.
Google noted that it wasn’t a party to the complaints but issued a statement saying “we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it.”
When Jobs unveiled the iPhone three years ago, he said Apple had filed some 200 patents related to it and intended to defend them to prevent others from copying it. Since then, numerous companies released phones that clearly took inspiration from the iPhone’s design and interface.
But outside of a few threatening remarks directed vaguely at Palm soon after the company unveiled its new Pre phones and webOS software last year, Apple didn’t follow up Jobs’ words with any public actions until last fall.
That action was prompted by Nokia, which filed a patent suit against Apple and followed it up with a complaint with the trade commission. Instead of simply defending itself, Apple responded in kind, filing a countersuit against Nokia and its own complaint with the trade commission.
But the actions against HTC mark the first time Apple has gone on the offensive with its iPhone-related patent portfolio.
Many companies that collect patents hold them primarily for defensive purposes — as protection from claims of infringement, said Carl Oppedahl, a partner with the Oppedahl Patent Law Firm. But it’s not unusual for such companies to “get religion” and become more aggressive about collecting and defending patents after they’ve been sued, such as Apple was by Nokia, he said.
The latest suit comes as relations between Google and Apple grow more strained. Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple’s board in August. At about the same time, Apple refused to approve two Google applications for use on the iPhone, a move that prompted an inquiry by the Federal Communications Commission.
In January, at a company meeting, Jobs reportedly derided Google’s mantra of “Don’t be evil,” and charged that the search giant wanted to kill the iPhone. Apple that month bought mobile advertising firm Quattro, less than two months after Google bought rival firm AdMob.
Contact Troy Wolverton at 408-920-5021. Follow him at http://twitter.com/troywolv.
HTC Heroes Apple sued HTC, a Taiwanese manufacturer of mobile phones, on Tuesday, in a lawsuit claiming 20 different patent infringements, largely relating to the user interface of the iPhone, which is manufactured by Apple.

According to the lawsuit, filed with both the United States District Court in Delaware and the  United States International Trade Commission, HTC violated Apple patents pertaining to both multi-touch gestures, which allow users to interact with a device's touchscreen using multiple fingers, as well as patents involving more general touch features.  Devices mentioned in the suit are all phones manufactured by HTC that use Google's Android software.  The lawsuit says that HTC, in selling the phones, knowingly induced those using the mentioned products to violate patents owned by Apple, some of which were filed in the mid-1990s.

Although the lawsuit named only HTC as a defendant, many viewed the action as an indirect challenge to Google, as the lawsuit only covered HTC devices running Google's Android software.  The operating system has seen increasing popularity in the last year, and has increasingly included multi-touch input of the type mentioned in the lawsuit.  

One analyst, from Kaufman Brothers, said, "I think this is kind of an indirect lawsuit against Google."  Others said that Apple was suing HTC instead of Google because the phone manufacturer was an easier target than Google. Another analyst from MKM Partners said that "HTC is an optimal target for Apple-it's a relatively small vendor with a weak brand."

In the documents, Apple said that their goal was to permanently block HTC from importing and selling devices that had the offending qualities, as well a significant cash payment in damages.