A world of change

After talking to HTC when they were giving us a preview of the HTC Hero a while back, we asked about multitouch and why they finally decided to include it. More or less, the response we received was that HTC and their legal team felt confident about including it, and with other competitors like Palm including multitouch, everything would be alright. Fast forward to literally a couple minutes ago, and we now find Apple filing suit against HTC regarding everything from hardware to the iPhone’s user interface. Let’s see if you can figure out who gave this quote:

“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

If you said Steve Jobs, you’d be correct. Full press release after the break.

CUPERTINO, Calif. March 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today filed a lawsuit against HTC for infringing on 20 Apple patents related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware. The lawsuit was filed concurrently with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and in U.S. District Court in Delaware.

“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

Apple reinvented the mobile phone in 2007 with its revolutionary iPhone®, and did it again in 2008 with its pioneering App Store, which now offers more than 150,000 mobile applications in over 90 countries. Over 40 million iPhones have been sold worldwide.

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