HTC smartphones clear US import review

TAIPEI - Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp announced on Wednesday that all its shipments to the United States have cleared a customs review into compliance with a patent ruling, thereby completing proceedings for US import.

The news brings to a close a roughly two-week inspection of its hot-selling One X series and new EVO 4G LTE products. The launch of the latter was postponed from May 18 because of the review.

All the HTC products were found by inspectors to be in compliance with a patent ruling made by a US trade panel, the company said in a brief statement, adding that future shipments would continue to enter the United States to meet local customers' demand.

However, the statement did not say whether future shipments would face a less time-consuming customs review before entering the US market.

The company said it had worked around the product design to avoid using the technologies that were deemed in a December 2011 ruling by the US International Trade Commission to have infringed upon a patent held by Apple Inc.

The ruling required that HTC smartphones for US import after April 19 should not use the patent-infringing technology.