HTC promises to stockpile patents for war with Apple

Mobile handset maker HTC has vowed to continue to expand its patent portfolio as it forges ahead with legal battles against Apple.

HTC executives recently told reporters the company plans to continue to stockpile patents as legal ammunition against Apple. The executives' statement comes following two costly blows in the ongoing legal feud between Apple and HTC.

"Apple is a company with 'big muscle' and is famous worldwide. In the United States particularly, it will be able to stop us by all means, this is our challenge. But we are not afraid of challenges because we have innovations," HTC chairwoman Cher Wang is quoted as saying in the China Post.

HTC recently celebrated its 15th anniversary, at the event Wang spoke about HTC's ongoing disputes with Apple. The two companies are currently fighting in court over claims of copyright infringement on standard-essential patents. Both companies have been arguing for competitor product bans in the US since 2010.

Apple won a patent case against HTC last October when an International Trade Commission (ITC) judge ruled that the iPhone didn't infringe on four HTC patents presented to the courts.

In response, HTC rented Android OS patents from Google in an attempt to present a new case to the courts. Unfortunately for the One S maker, US courts ruled that only Google could invoke Android copyrights and the patent claims were thrown out. 

Commentators had feared that HTC's ongoing copyright battles had put a strain on the company. But HTC CEO Peter Chou recently dismissed those concerns in an interview with Reuters.

"Patent lawsuits haven't caused any actual damage to HTC," Chou told Reuters.

"Only [Wall] Street is worried for us, we're not worried ourselves. We hope the disputes will get more reasonable in the future."

HTC and Apples legal back and forth come in light of recent US urgings to call off any product bans based on standard-essential patent infringement.

The Federal Trade Commission wrote to the ITC that hardware bans on products like the iPhone could have major consequences to US sales competition.

HTC was unavailable for comment at the time of this publication.