Apple and HTC have announced a global patent licensing agreement between the two technology companies.
The two firms have been involved in a series of patent disputes over the last two years, but have agreed to a 10-year joint licensing agreement for all current and future patents belonging to both companies. Financial terms of the settlement were not divulged.
"We are glad to have reached a settlement with HTC," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement.
"HTC is pleased to have resolved its dispute with Apple," added HTC CEO Peter Chou.
The legal dispute between Apple and HTC began in March 2010, when the former filed a complaint against the latter with the U.S. International Trade Commission, accusing the Taiwan company of violating 10 of its patents. An ITC judge, however, found only two violations in June, 2011.
Two months after Apple's complaint, HTC accused the iPhone creator of infringing on five patents pertaining to its mobile technology. It asked the ITC to halt the import and sale of the iPad, iPod and iPhone. During the August of 2011, meanwhile, HTC filed a lawsuit accusing Apple of violating two Wi-Fi patents related to Mac systems, iPads, iPods and iPhones.
During the December of 2011, however, the ITC ruled that HTC infringed on Apple's patent for "data tapping", which is techniques automatically formatting documents to allow, for example, a dialer program to surface when a phone number appears. With the body ruling that it would apply an import ban on several HTC products if the feature wasn't removed by April 19 2012, HTC announced it would immediately remove the component from "all of our phones."
Finally, Apple won a ruling against HTC recently relating to a case where a judge dismissed five patents HTC received from Google last year.
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