Apple wins partial victory in HTC suit

The International Trade Commission has finally made a ruling in the Apple vs. HTC case, and Apple has won ... mostly. The commission ruled that HTC did actually violate one part of an Apple patent in making its Android phones, and that those phones would not be allowed for sale in the US.

But while that sounds like a win for Cupertino, it's not quite as widespread a ruling as Apple wanted: The decision only applies to phones that store their data in a certain way (so any phones that don't use that feature are not blocked for sale), and the ban isn't even scheduled to go into effect until April, which should likely be more than enough time for HTC and Google to make changes in the phones that would get them around the ruling.

But analysts agree that if nothing else, this is at least a win for Apple that will make any further patent arguments easier for the company going forward, and even if the ban doesn't actually go into place until April, at least Apple is getting a ban on some Android products that it believes are infringing. So good news for Apple, and expect to see more rulings like this in the future.