Apple Inc. won a patent court ruling against HTC in a decision that could ban smartphones from the Taiwanese manufacturer in the U.S. market.

The U.S. International Trade Commission found that HTC infringed on patents that cover technology behind the iPhone. The trade panel found that HTC infringe on two claims of patent #5946647 issued in 1999. The technology, covered in the patent allows devices to look at computer text for data, like a phone number in computer text like e-mail and turns that data into a link that the user can select to perform a task such as calling the number. The ITC decision will go to President Obama's desk for a 60- day review. The ITC ban will go into effect on April 19, 2012 and will include HTC Android devices, the Spring Evo 4G, Verizon Droid Incredible, AT&T Aria and T-Mobile G2. Units sold before the ban will be unaffected and HTC will have until December 19, 2013 to import refurbished phones to honor the warranties on those phones.

Apple's victory is a small respite in a growing battle amongst smartphone makers as companies struggle to assert their dominance in the growing smartphone market. Between Apple and Samsung there are 30 lawsuits in different courts around the world. Apple has suits against Motorola and HTC and even Microsoft is suing Motorola Mobility over Android. Even the rhetoric among the combatants has gotten more stringent. Google has accused its competitors of a hostile campaign against Android "waged through bogus patents".

While the ruling would ban HTC phones, it's not as devastating a blow to HTC as Apple would like. HTC could just develop a software workaround that doesn't violate Apple's patents. According to an HTC statement the company would just remove the feature from its phones.

"We are gratified that the Commission affirmed the judge's initial determination on the '721 and '983 patents, and reversed its decision on the '263 patent and partially on the '647 patent. We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it. However, the '647 patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon."

The absence of the feature, which links phone numbers in text of emails or other documents to a dialer, is a small UI experience but it is something that users expect. It's unclear if the lack of the feature would turn consumers away from HTC but smartphone users should expect more changes as the patent wars heat up.