Apple slowly gaining patents to fight its war of attrition with Android
Apple was recently awarded a patent related to multitouch input processing, which the Internet immediately characterized as a “key multitouch patent” that Apple could use to target Android handset makers.
Context & Ripple Effects
The new grant extends a pattern the patent press has tracked all year: Patently Apple logged another core iPhone multitouch award just yesterday (added to Apple's multitouch arsenal), and FOSS Patents mapped Apple's growing docket against HTC back in July (its 'heavy artillery' battlemap). What makes this one land differently is that the arsenal is no longer theoretical — an ITC ruling this month bans some HTC smartphones from the U.S. over core multitouch infringement starting next year.
It also follows two quieter moves: October reporting on a Steve Jobs-named patent that could block new Android launches in Australia (shut down any new Android product there), and TechCrunch's December piece on Apple striking a deal with a patent troll — evidence the company is working every lever, not just its own filings.
First-order effects
- Android handset makers — HTC above all, given the ITC exclusion order — now face a second multitouch claim they must design around, license, or litigate, with U.S. market access as the stake.
- Apple gains fresh settlement leverage: each granted core patent raises the per-device cost of staying on Android without a cross-license.
Second-order effects
- Google's response options narrow toward portfolio parity — pushing its own and Motorola Mobility's patents into the fight — while smaller OEMs weigh exiting infringing form factors rather than funding defenses.
- Licensing intermediaries and assertion firms become more attractive partners for both sides, as the TechCrunch-reported troll deal suggests Apple is already willing to outsource part of the campaign.
Third-order effects
- If grants keep converting into import bans, smartphone competition structurally shifts from feature velocity to patent depth, favoring incumbents with decades-old filings and raising a barrier around the category for new entrants.
- Sustained exclusion orders invite regulatory and legislative scrutiny of software patents as trade weapons — the outcome of that scrutiny is genuinely unresolved.
The trend: Mobile platform rivalry is migrating from product cycles to patent accumulation, where each USPTO grant functions as a potential market-access veto.