Apple says its OK for the ITC to ban HTC’s Android handsets, as they could always sell more Windows Phones

Fosspatents has posted about the latest machinations of Apple’s case against HTC, in which HTC has already been found to infringe 2 of Apple’s patents.

With the ITC considering a ban, HTC made arguments about this being against the public interest.

Apple however countered, saying "[t]he present investigation does not present an instance where a compelling public interest might supersede the entry of a statutory exclusion order".

They continued:

Apple, however, argues that "[c]onsumers do not face any potential shortage of like or directly competitive products in the United States". Since Apple and HTC agreed at an early stage of the investigation that Apple’s infringement assertions were related only to Android-based products, Apple points out that, "therefore, even HTC itself could potentially replace the volume of articles subject to a remedial order in this investigation within a commercially reasonable time" by selling more Windows-based HTC phones instead of Android-based ones.

While the case is still on-going, and it will likely result in HTC and/or Google releasing a work-around to the infringement, it would be pretty satisfying to see HTC being forced to seriously promote Windows Phone 7 in USA, just to stay in the market there.

Read (a lot) more at Fosspatents here.