[JURIST] Mobile phone maker HTC [corporate website] filed a complaint [press release] Wednesday against Apple [corporate website] with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) [official website] to freeze the importation and sale of iPhones, iPads, and iPods. HTC, based in Taiwan, has accused [ET report] Apple of infringing five patents, though it has not released details of the patents in question. Under US law [19 USC s. 1337 text, PDF], a company can seek redress for unfair practices in import trade by issuing a complaint and asking the ITC to place exclusion orders on the offending imports.

In March, Apple filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] against HTC in US District Court for the District of Delaware [official website] alleging that several of HTC's products infringe 10 patents owned by Apple. Apple also filed a complaint [text, PDF] against HTC with the ITC claiming infringement of 10 other Apple patents, seeking to bar the importation of infringing devices. Apple has recently been involved in numerous legal actions over alleged patent infringement. In October, Finnish telecommunications company Nokia [corporate website] filed suit [JURIST report] against Apple alleging that Apple infringed 10 of its patents since the first iPhone was released in 2007. The patents cover wireless data transmission, speech coding, and security/encryption.