A representative from HTC said Friday that the company will not be forced to remove a "data-tapping" feature from its phones as a result of a December decision by the U.S. International Trade Commission.
Instead, the company believes that it can merely alter the feature to bypass the patent restriction, while leaving the core functionality intact, a representative said.
The patent in question covers so-called "data-tapping," a useful technology that allows the user to trigger an action by tapping a specific piece of data. For example, data tapping allows a smartphone user who calls up a Web page with a phone number listed on it to simply click the number, dialing it from the phone's dialer application. Clicking an email address would compose an email with the recipient automatically filled in.
That feature was thought to be in jeopardy after the ITC in December ordered an import ban on certain HTC devices starting April 19. That ruling followed a July decision, where an ITC judge found that HTC infringed on two of 10 Apple patents. HTC and Apple requested reviews of that decision.
Following the ruling, HTC released a statement saying that to avoid the ban, it would remove the data-tapping feature.
"We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it. However, the [data tapping] patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon," the company said at the time.
When asked if Google could develop a workaround for the ruling, a Google spokesperson referred questions to HTC.
When asked to comment on Friday, HTC said that it wouldn't have to remove the data-tapping feature entirely. "But to clarify, we were found to infringe the interface, not the functionality," an HTC spokeswoman said in an email. "So we will remove the bit that says 'Do you want to call this number? Save this number? SMS this number?' Each found data string will have a default action. A phone number will dial, an email will begin composing an email, et cetera."
"A lot of press have misunderstood this last piece and it has been widely misreported, so I wanted to clarify it for you," the spokeswoman said.