Time to add another lawsuit to the growing list of battles already going on. Today HTC filed suit against Apple for allegedly infringing on patents that the Taiwan-based firm was recently given by Google. The four patents in question were originally held by Motorola but were acquired by Google sometime in the past year and then transferred to HTC on September 1st. In addition, HTC has amended one of its previous International Trade Commission complaints against Apple with another five patents given to it from El Goog. This batch of patents originally belonged to Openwave Systems and Palm before moving to Google and then to HTC.
HTC and Apple have been going back and forth in the courtroom quite a bit as of late, with the latest chapter in the story coming in the middle of last month when HTC filed a suit against Apple in a Delaware for allegedly infringing on patents with the Mac, iPhone, and iPad. However, this is the first time we've seen Google enter the battle between HTC and Apple, a move which is sure to make this latest suit even more interesting than it would've been without the Mountain View firm's involvement. Apple has yet to issue a response to HTC's new lawsuit.
UPDATE: HTC has told All Things D that it paid to gain these patents from Google, but the company has refused to comment on exactly how much cash changed hands in the deal.
Via MacRumors, Bloomberg, All Things D
