Recently, Apple (News - Alert) won a patent violation claim against HTC, a competing company that produces phones for the Android (News - Alert) platform. As a result, the International Trade Commission blocked imports on two models of the Taiwanese company's new Android Smartphones into the U.S.

The two phones in question are the HTC One X and Evo 4G LTE (News - Alert). In their design of these two phones, HTC allegedly infringed on Apple patents that involve the way in which smartphones process finger tap commands. You know how when you click on someone's name or email address on an iPhone (News - Alert) a menu appears, and then asks the users what they want to do? Yeah, Apple owns that.

If HTC wants to keep their new phones legal, they will have to redesign the involved software so that when you tap a phone number or an email address, the phone does not immediately prompt the user to perform "actions," i.e. "dial" or "send e-mail."

While the required changes seem negligible, Apple succeeded in creating an enormous financial problem for its competitor. HTC (News - Alert) will now have to invest money in legal fees, and to release multiple versions of the software that the phones run. The incident also caused HTC's stock to drop significantly. This is a standard Apple tactic; they have given Samsung a similar treatment in the past.

The latest word is that the U.S. District Court of Delaware mandated that the two companies must reach a settlement. Judge Sherry Fallon will moderate. This type of forced settlement is becoming increasingly prevalent in courts dealing with patent disputes between these large communications companies.

It seems as though courts are wising up to the fact that Apple uses the legal system as a weapon against legitimate competitors as they enter the market. This begs the question of whether Apple really is the prominent name in the tech industry based on actual merit or maybe they just happen to have the most vigilant and aggressive legal muscle.