Apple’s Mac OS X infringes on HTC-owned S3 patents, ITC rules

United States International Trade Commission judge James Gildea has ruled that Apple’s Mac OS X operating system infringes on two patents owned by S3. Judge Gildea also ruled that the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch do not infringe on S3’s patents, however. The patents in question are related to NVIDIA graphics chips used in Apple’s Mac computers, but it is unclear which devices exactly are infringing on S3’s technology. HTC purchased S3 for $300 million in early July, and a different ITC judge recently ruled that the Taiwanese company is guilty of infringing on two patents owned by Apple related to a “system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data,” and a “real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data.” HTC’s chief financial officer Winston Yung said on Tuesday that his company was willing to bury the hatchet with Apple and that the two companies have to “sit down and figure it out.”

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