HTC’s new One X and Evo 4G LTE handsets face an indefinite import delay at U.S. Customs due to a prior International Trade Commission (ITC) ruling in Apple’s favor.
The Verge reports that both handsets are delayed while Customs investigates whether they infringe upon a specific Apple patent for which Apple won a ban on HTC’s Android devices at the ITC last year. The ban involves a patent covering so-called “data tapping”, or the automatic conversion of chunks of text such as dates, phone numbers, and email addresses into tappable items.
According to the report, the ban was delayed so HTC could engineer around Apple’s patent, but went into effect on April 19.
“The US availability of the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE has been delayed due to a standard U.S.
