HTC wants to end all the legal bloodshed, because it's bad for business. In a call today, Winston Yung, chief financial officer of HTC, said, "We have to sit down and figure it out" and "we're open to having discussions." Maybe there is a new consigliere at the Taiwan based company, or maybe they've been watching a lot of Godfather movies and realized that Sonny, while cool and all, was never going to make any real money with all that fighting.
On July 6, HTC spent $300 million to buy S3 Graphics Co., a company that had just won an International Trade Commission ruling against Apple regarding two patents dealing with compression technology. That purchase gave HTC some much-needed intellectual property leverage against Apple, though just two weeks latter Apple won an ITC ruling against HTC regarding two other patents dealing with data detection and data transmission technologies.
Getting all this?
Yung said he is not aware that any formal talks have begun yet, but went on to state that HTC was putting all options on the negotiating table, "as long as the solution and the terms are fair and reasonable." It appears that with the ITC wins from the S3 Graphics purchase, HTC feels like they have a bargaining position against Cupertino.
This may end up being a "take the cash, leave the lawsuits" situation, where both companies walk away with a fair compromise. Which would be good for everyone. After all, it's business, not personal.
Via Bloomberg
