HTC Will "Fully Defend Itself" Against Apple's Accusations

Mobile phone maker HTC has released an official statement, declaring that the company will 'fully defend itself' against the lawsuit filed by Apple Inc.

Apple claims that the company has infringed 20 of its patents related to hardware and software technology in most of HTC's smartphones which run on Google's Android OS.

According to the press release, after carefully examining the 20-odd patent infringement claims made by the iPod maker, HTC has announced that it was confident that the company will be able to defend its interests in every possible way imaginable.

In what seemed like a call for battle, Peter Chou, chief executive officer, HTC Corporation said in a statement that “HTC disagrees with Apple’s actions and will fully defend itself. HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done.” 

The lawsuit filed by Apple is an indirect attack on Google, which has partnered extensively with the smartphone maker in order to develop its Android mobile phone operating system. 

Interestingly, HTC, which first started with Window Mobile based phones, has benefited from the increasing popularity of the Android platform, as sale of its Android based smartphones has sky-rocketed with an exponential rise in the number of handset it has released.