Last year, HTC last year gained a handful of patents from Google to be used in an International Trade Commission (ITC) complaint against Apple. However, the Cupertino firm recently filed a motion asking that five of the patents be tossed out, and unfortunately for HTC, Apple's motion has succeeded. Administrative Law Judge Thomas Pender recently decided that those five patents can't be used by HTC because of a lack of standing, meaning that the company hasn't acquired all of the rights to the patents from Google that are necessary to use them against Apple. Judge Pender's ruling leaves HTC with three patents asserted in its complaint against Apple.

So what happens now? HTC still has some options, including an appeal of the judge's decision or trying to get Google to straight up get involved in the complaint. Whether HTC decides to take advantage of any of these choices or simply forge ahead with its three remaining patents remains to be seen, but the firm likely isn't thrilled with Judge Pender's decision, especially considering that Apple recently filed a new ITC complaint against HTC and 29 of its devices. We'll keep an eye on the complaints between these two and pass along more details as we get them, so stay tuned!

Via FOSS Patents