Here’s Apple’s Settlement Pact with HTC (Well, the Parts We’re Allowed to See)

When Apple and HTC settled their legal disputes in a surprise deal several weeks back, the two companies provided little in the way of details on the agreement.

Now, thanks to Apple’s dispute with Samsung, the public will learn at least a little more.

According to the document, both sides are getting a nonexclusive, nontransferrable and non-sublicensable license to certain of the other’s patents. Apple also agrees not to sue HTC over certain covered products, though the specific products are redacted.

The agreement also appears to exclude any of Apple’s design patents and nine specified HTC patents as well as coverage for any products that are defined as cloning an Apple product. (An arbitration process is outlined should Apple feel that HTC has released a “cloned” product.)

Samsung has just entered a redacted version of the agreement into the public record, presumably in an effort to argue that the deal indicates that Apple doesn’t need an injunction against Samsung products in order to be properly compensated for any patent infringement.

There’s an awful lot of black ink covering far more than just the royalty rates that HTC must pay Apple. That said, there’s 140 pages worth of text so there are bound to be some useful tidbits that managed to avoid being Sharpie-d out of view.

For instance, the document includes the agreement by both parties to keep things quiet, even going so far as to include the only press release to be issued by the parties.

Below is a PDF of the black ink-soaked settlement.

Apple-HTC Settlement (Redacted)

Apple versus Samsung Full Coverage