HTC and Samsung enter agreement for the patent portfolio of Intellectual Ventures

In this day and age, when most industry giants are entangled in some form of mobile OS patent dispute, HTC and Samsung are not taking any chances. Not willing to be mired in Android patent litigation both companies have bought patent licensing agreements with Intellectual Ventures. It is basically a company which has the leverage of more than 30,000 IP assets. Intellectual Ventures will also manage HTC's existing patent portfolios.

HTC's PR announcement states: "Given HTC's innovativeness in developing some of the industry's first smartphones and its continued development of some of the world's most advanced products, HTC is forward-thinking with its IP practices and is working with IV to mitigate its IP risk." This move comes hot on the heels of the court awarding Oracle $1.3bln in damages for SAP stealing patented software from it, the largest copyright infringement settlement, so no wonder HTC and Samsung want to avoid such fate, while focusing on their core competencies. A nice chart of who's suing who in the mobile industry is displayed below, courtesy of the Guardian.

via Engadget