当iPhone收到一条含有电话号码、电子邮件地址、网页链接或街道地址的消息时，这些相关信息会自动高亮、添加上下划线并能转换成可点击的链接。

    例如如果你点击电话号码，iPhone会询问你是否需要拨打；点击网页链接，iPhone会运行Safari浏览器打开该网页；点击街道地址时，iPhone则会在地图程序上显示该地点。

    所有Android手机也都具有同样的功能。

    不过三十多家生产Android设备的厂商非常不走运，苹果（Apple）早在1996年就针对运行上述操作的基础系统和方法，在美国注册了专利号为5，946，647的专利。2010年，苹果起诉Android手机市场领导者宏达电（HTC）侵犯自己20项专利，647专利就是其中之一。

    当时，史蒂夫•乔布斯曾表示，我们欢迎“健康有序”的竞争，但决不姑息竞争对手的“盗窃”行为。

    上周五，美国国际贸易委员会（U.S. International Trade Commission,，简称ITC）的一名法官裁定，宏达电侵犯了包括647专利在内的两项苹果专利。

    这一判决可能将引起轩然大波。

    宏达电已就此提出上诉，ITC的一个六人委员可以推翻该判决。如果宏达电有相关专利能够进行交换，苹果也许会愿意与宏达电达成交叉授权协议。或者宏达电还能找到途径绕过该专利，不过想绕过这项基础技术绝非易事。

    软件专利资讯博客FOSS Patents的弗洛里安•穆勒指出：

    “站在中国的万里长城面前时，人们一样可以发誓要找到一条路绕过去。但这并不意味着真能行得通。”

    对宏达电而言，最糟糕的情况是，假设判决最终生效，ITC将会在年底前禁止美国进口宏达电的Android设备。正如穆勒指出的，宏达电2012年在美国市场的份额将迅速萎缩到0.0%。

    如果宏达电侵犯了苹果的647专利，那么其它所有Android厂商可能都在劫难逃。

    根据穆勒的计算，此案只是针对Android操作系统提起的49项诉讼之一。谷歌开发了Android系统并将其免费分发给三十多家制造商，但它却没有花心思去获得众多基础技术的授权。

    谷歌随后抱怨称，美国的专利体系已经崩坏，不过谷歌在发布Android之前就应该考虑到这点。科技网站TechCrunch称，在上周的谷歌季度收益电话会议上，其首席执行官拉里•佩奇在被问到此事时，非常挑衅地表示：“Android是不可战胜的。不管我们的竞争对手如何大做文章。”

    FOSS Patents的穆勒按照惯例，在网站上发表了宏达电一案最详细的分析报告，其中包括苹果向ITC提起的关键“专利侵权表”（claim charts）的详细分解。

    译者：项航

    When an iPhone receives a message that contains a phone number or an address -- e-mail, Web or street -- those bits of data are automatically highlighted, underlined and turned into clickable links.

    Click on the phone number, and the iPhone asks if you want to dial it. Click on the Web address, and it opens in Safari. Click on the street address, and Maps will display it.

    Any Android phone will do the same.

    Unfortunately for the three dozen companies that make Android devices, Apple (AAPL) filed for a patent on the underlying system and method that performs these actions in 1996. The patent, U.S. Patent No. 5,946,647, was one of 20 that in March 2010 Apple accused HTC, a leading maker of Android phones, of violating.

    Competition is "healthy," Steve Jobs said at the time. But competitors should not "steal."

    On Friday, a judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled that HTC had indeed violated two of those Apple patents, including '647.

    This could be a big one.

    HTC has appealed the decision, which could be overruled by a six-member panel. Or Apple might be willing to cross-license the technology to HTC, assuming HTC has any patented technology to trade. Or HTC could find a way around the patent, although with a technique this basic, that might not be so easy.

    As FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller puts it:

    "Standing in front of the Great Wall of China, you can also vow to walk around it. That doesn't mean it's a viable option."

    In the worst-case scenario, assuming the decision prevails, the ITC could ban the import of HTC's Android devices before the end of the year. The company's 2012 U.S. market share, as Mueller puts it, could shrink to 0.0%.

    And if HTC violated Apple's patent '647, so probably have all the other Android manufacturers.

    By Mueller's count, this case is only one of 49 that have been filed against the Android operating system, which Google (GOOG) created and distributed for free to those three dozen manufacturers without, it would seem, bothering to license all the underlying technology.

    Google has been complaining lately that the U.S. patent system is broken -- a problem it might have considered addressing before it launched Android. When CEO Larry Page was asked about the issue during the company's quarterly earnings call last week, he was defiant. "Android is on a tear," he said, according to TechCrunch. "Despite the efforts of some of our competitors."

    FOSS Patents' Mueller, as usual, has the most detailed analysis of the HTC case, included a breakdown of the key "claim charts" that Apple filed with the ITC.