HTC says it is willing to negotiate with Apple to settle an ongoing patent dispute.
"We have to sit down and figure it out," Winston Yung, chief financial officer of HTC, told Bloomberg on Tuesday. "We're open to having discussions."
"We are open to all sorts of solutions, as long as the solution and the terms are fair and reasonable," he said. "On and off we've had discussions with Apple, even before the initial determination came out."
In April, the International Trade Commission handed HTC and Nokia a victory in a key patent battle against Apple. But HTC took it one step further when, on July 6, it acquired S3 Graphics for $300 million in order to add it to its patent portfolio, according to reports. Within a week, however, Apple won a patent battle of its own when the ITC said HTC may have infringed on two Apple patents.
HTC has a more urgent reason to want to settle this ongoing patent war once and for all. Following the S3 Group announcement, HTC shares sank as low as 20 percent, but have climbed back up 17 percent following Tung's statements.
"I think it's a sign of weakness. HTC seeks to reassure customers and investors, but Apple won't be impressed," says Florian Mueller, a tech IP expert who's been monitoring the dispute since it began in 2001. See his "battlemap" for a complete history of Apple vs. HTC.
"I'm sure HTC's willingness to negotiate was never the issue in this. The problem is Apple's agenda, which doesn't envision HTC to deliver products anywhere near the level of user experience the iPhone and iPad provide," he said.
The patent war between Apple and HTC started in March 2010. At the time, Apple sued HTC for 20 instances of patent infringement, all dealing with various elements of the iPhone. "We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it," Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, said at the time. "We've decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."