Who did not see this coming? In an industry rife with court battles, no one should be shocked to hear that HTC, which was sued by Apple in March, countered with a lawsuit of its own yesterday, naming 5 specific patent violations. HTC has requested that there be an embargo imposed on all importation of iPod, iPad, and iPhone devices, which are manufactured in Asia.

The 5 copyright patents that HTC is alleging that Apple has infringed upon are as follows:

Patent #5,541,988 - Telephone dialler with a personalized page organization of telephone directory memory.
Patent #6,058,183 - Telephone dialler with a personalized page organization of telephone directory memory.
Patent #6,320,957 - Telephone dialer with easy access memory.
Patent #6,999,800 - Method for power management of a smartphone.

Since I am not a lawyer and do not even possess an iPhone, I will refrain from commenting on these legal disputes. It does seem to me, though, that the patent offices are in dire need of changes, and that articles and words require significantly greater clarification.