Although the ITC ruled that HTC infringed on Apple's iPhone patent No. 647, it rejected other patent infringement charges by Apple against HTC's Android phones. HTC has four months to file an appeal, and they stated that they had already prepared a response plan unrelated to patent No. 647, which involves the display of telephone numbers and other formatted data in documents such as emails.
However, some analysts believe that the temporary impact of this ruling cannot be ignored. Brian Marshall, an analyst at U.S. investment firm ISI Group, wrote: "This ruling further convinces Apple that Android phones infringe on Apple's intellectual property rights, which will give Apple a stronger position in other lawsuits against Android manufacturers."
Other analysts have not made definitive conclusions. William Power, an analyst at securities firm R.W. Baird, believes: "Although superficially it seems that Apple won and HTC lost, given HTC's adopted response measures and future legal strategies, the full impact of this ruling is still unclear."
Even though it appears on the surface that Apple won the lawsuit, some analysts believe that HTC was actually the loser. Confusingly, the stock prices of all parties involved in the litigation rose. HTC's stock price rose by NT$31 on Tuesday at the Tainan Stock Exchange, reaching NT$476, with a gain of 7%; Google's stock price also rose by $7.47 on Tuesday, reaching $629.30, with a gain of 1%.
Analysts believe that although Apple succeeded in the lawsuit, most of its goals achieved through litigation were not met. Mike Abramsky, an analyst at RBC Capital, stated that the ITC's ruling was "relatively minor for Apple, significantly weakening the reputation of the Android camp in the broader smartphone patent landscape."
Pierre Ferragu, an analyst at U.S. investment company Sanford Bernstein, said that this ruling had no impact on HTC's U.S. business. He said: "Many observers hastily concluded that Apple won the patent lawsuit. However, we believe quite the opposite; HTC and Android achieved their first victory. The ITC reduced the number of patents that HTC was found to infringe upon from two to one, rejecting several other patent infringement charges, which was a very disappointing result for Apple. At least from our analysis, this ruling had basically no impact on HTC's U.S. business, which left Apple very disappointed. Apple just wasted its time."
Xinhua News Agency reported that despite differing reactions from Wall Street analysts regarding the ITC's ruling that HTC infringed on one of Apple's patents, Apple's stock price still rose by $7.25 on Tuesday, reaching $389.46, with a gain of 2%.