Apple filed a patent infringement lawsuit Tuesday against HTC, claiming that the Taiwanese company is infringing 20 Apple patents.
The patents are related to the iPhone user interface and the smartphone's underlying architecture and hardware, Apple said in a statement. HTC phones include those that use Google's Android mobile OS. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Delaware and with the U.S. International Trade Commission.
"We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions or we can do something about it," the statement quoted Apple CEO Steve Jobs as saying. "We've decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."
Apple did not say which HTC products infringe on Apple patents.
The lawsuit is the most recent in a string of such patent infringement claims filed by smartphone vendors against one another.
HTC has not yet seen the lawsuit filing, so cannot comment specifically about it, said Keith Nowak, media relations manager at the company's North American headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. However, the company has been making phones for years and holds many of its own patents, he noted, adding "we value patent rights and their enforcement."