Apple and HTC call off hostilities

In a surprising outbreak of peace in the mobile phone world, Apple and the Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC have halted legal hostilities and signed a 10-year licensing agreement.

Industry sources suggested that HTC may have agreed to pay Apple between $5 (£3.15) and $20 per handset that it produces with Google's Android operating system. HTC said that the deal, which enables the company to use Apple patents on its devices, would not have a material effect on its profit-and-loss account.

HTC was the company that first prompted Steve Jobs to threaten to "go thermonuclear" against Android handsets in 2010. The companies had been suing each other for 32 months in Europe and the US, most notably at the International Trade Commission (ITC), which controls imports of goods into the US. Apple had succeeded last year in temporarily blocking US imports of HTC Android phones, choking its sales, and another ITC ruling in Apple's favour was about to be handed down in the coming weeks.

The deal, announced in a joint statement on Sunday, follows the legal battle between Apple and Samsung concerning patent infringements, which saw Apple secure $1bn in damages in August.