HTC, one of the world's biggest makers of smartphones, on Friday said that the International Trade Commission (ITC) made a ruling, which claimed that it had infringed two of Apple's patents. At the same time, the judge dismissed allegations of infringements of eight other patents by HTC.

HTC was originally accused of violation of ten Apple patents. An ITC judge ruled, in an initial determination, that HTC violated only two. Since Apple did not publicly specified the ten patents that HTC allegedly infringed, it is impossible to say which two of them were considered to be violated by the ITC judge. HTC disagreed that it had violated even the two and said it would continue to defend itself in court.

"We are confident we have a strong case for the ITC appeals process and are fully prepared to defend ourselves using all means possible," said Grace Lei, general counsel at HTC, reports Reuters news-agency.

Apple sued HTC back in early 2010. Back then it was largely believed that the former wanted to slowdown sales of HTC's Google Android-based devices. After this, Apple accused Samsung Electronics over infringement of its patents.

It is largely believed that Apple is attacking Google Android platform in an attempt to sustain sales of highly-profitable iOS based devices like iPad (iPod touch) or iPhone.

Apple did not comment on the news-story.

Tags: HTC, Apple, iOS, Android, Google