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Apple filed a second patent infringement complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission against HTC on July 8, asking that the sale of several HTC Android devices in the U.S. be blocked.

It was the second complaint Apple had lodged against HTC in the past 16 months.

An initial ruling on the first complaint was scheduled to be made on August 5, but it will likely be moved up to July 15, according to HTC.

"While it is difficult to quantify the impact at this point, we tend to believe that if Apple's claim is successful, a worst case is that HTC would try to settle with Apple to lower the risk of injunction," Morgan Stanley analysts said in a research note.

Last week, HTC announced the acquisition of S3 Graphics Co. Ltd for US$300 million (NT$8.66 billion) soon after the graphics chipset designer won a ruling at the ITC against Apple.

The acquisition was viewed more as a defensive move by HTC in case it is forced to settle with Apple if the ITC ruling is not in HTC's favor.

Based on a recent patent infringement settlement between Apple and Nokia, Apple paid Nokia around US$2-4 (NT$58-115) per handset, according to the brokerage.

Assuming HTC were to pay Apple US$4-5 because its patent violations could be more serious than in the Apple-Nokia case, it would reduce Morgan Stanley's 2012 estimates for HTC's earnings per share by 1-1.4 percent, it noted.

"Although an initial ruling usually means little before a final ruling (at least another six months away) is concluded, rising litigation uncertainty could remain as a share price overhang," Morgan Stanley said.

A Taipei-based researcher, said, however, that HTC's market share would not be hurt badly by the case because of its research and development capability.

"The impact on HTC's market share will be limited because the company still has some advantages in communications technology, such as the speed of launching new products and its strength in 4G smartphones with some U.S. carriers," said Kelly Hsieh, associate manager at Topology Research Institute (TRI), in an interview with CNA.

But Hsieh said the Taoyuan-based company will face some barriers in the second half of 2011, including a global slowdown in consumer demand, the relatively high defect rate of touch panels, and the challenge from Samsung Electronics Co.'s best-selling Gallaxy S2 smartphone. (By Jeffrey Wu) ENDITEM/ls