Another day, another page in the history of the patent war. Is HTC's turn now; Asia's second largest smartphone company is suing Apple and also filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission, alleging patent infringement. The interesting thing is that, according to allthingsd, HTC paid Google an undisclosed amount to recently transfer the nine patents in question. It's rumored that four of those patents were registered by Motorola, which was recently bought for $12.9 billion by Google. In this context, two major ecosystems will battle to claim patents: Android vs. Apple. Apple began the war by suing Samsung, forcing them to withdraw some of their products from the European and Australian markets: Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 7.7. The stakes are big in this war and this is the first step made by Google so far to support its Android customers. Motorola also plays a big role in this; they previously got a healthy portfolio of 17,000 patents. At the heart of the matter: HTC claims that Apple is using the same system to upgrade software wirelessly on their devices (Mac computers, iPhone, iPod, iPad, iCloud and iTunes) and so they are infringing othe patents that HTC owns ("a way to transfer data between a microprocessor and a support chip; a method to store user preferences and a way to provide consistent contact between application software and a radio modem"). Apple continues to state that HTC is the one infringing. Stay tuned. Source: Bloomberg