If you can't beat 'em, hope somebody else clubs 'em over the head for you. Microsoft must be chortling in not-so-secret glee over the possibility that the International Trade Commission (ITC) might ban importing HTC Android phones onto the U.S. market—because Microsoft, not Apple, would be the real winner in Android's collapse.
The commission will make its decision on Dec. 14, Bloomberg reports.
There's a certain domino effect assumed here. As patent analyst (and accused Microsoft partisan) Florian Muller explains, the patents over which Apple and HTC are fighting appear to be at the core of Android. Apple's goal isn't just to block HTC: it's to block the whole forward roll of Android, the nation's dominant mobile OS.
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