A little more than two months after Apple sued smartphone manufacturer HTC over iPhone patents allegedly used in the Taiwanese company’s Google phones, HTC has responded with an infringement suit of its own. And as Zusha Ellinson of sibling publication The Recorder reports, HTC appears to have acquired most of the patents in the case from a so-called patent troll last year.
In its complaint, filed Wednesday with the International Trade Commission, HTC claims that Apple’s iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch devices infringe on five of the company’s patents. Two are HTC patents–one of which was only issued Tuesday. The remaining three patents, The Recorder says, were owned by patent troll Saxon Innovations until HTC won them as part of a settlement last spring.
The countersuit is the latest volley in Apple’s long-running dispute with HTC–and just the latest battle to flare up in Apple’s broader smartphone IP wars.
