VIA Technologies sues Apple for violating three of its chip patents

At first glance, it doesn’t appear to be just another skirmish in the smartphones patent war, but the timing of VIA Technologies’ patent infringement suit against Apple is suspicious. VIA is a chipmaker, and they don’t compete with Apple, for the most part. The three patents VIA claims are being infringed by iPhone, iPod, etc., involve a microprocessor.

Here’s why IPBlog thinks it’s more of the same:  Cher Wang, the Chairman of VIA Technologies is also Chairman of HTC Corp. In effect, HTC has opened up another front, and potentially a significant one.