It appears that the mobile space has become somewhat of a minefield of patent infringement complaints, and it appears that Apple is right up there at the head of the pile in the infringement complaining game, so much so that word is Apple has now filed another complaint against HTC that drags the HTC Flyer and HTC EVO 4G into the fight.

According to an article over on Phone Arena by way of FOSSPatents, the new filing is Apple’s second ITC complaint against HTC with the originally complaint covering over 10 patents back in March of 2010.

Furthermore according to an article over on Slash Gear, HTC has now responded to Apple upping the ante in the patent infringement stakes and HTC’s general counsel Grace Lei says… “HTC is dismayed that Apple has resorted to competition in the courts rather than the market place. HTC continues to vehemently deny all of Apple’s past and present claims against it and will continue to protect and defend its own intellectual property as it has already done this year.”

Apparently Apple’s new filing covers five patents that are… “application programming interfaces for scrolling operations”, “list scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display”, “programmable tactile touch screen displays and man-machine interfaces for improved vehicle instrumentation and telematics”, “double-sided touch-sensitive panel with shield and drive combined layer”, and “portable computers”

So the HTC Android smartphones involved in the Apple patent infringement complaints now stand as the HTC Droid Incredible and Incredible 2, T-Mobile myTouch 3G and myTouch 3G Slide, T-Mobile G1 and G2, HTC Wildfire, Aria, Desire, Hero, Merge, EVO 4G, HTC Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 4G, and Inspire 4G, along with the tablet the HTC Flyer.

As you can probably tell every device Apple is complaining about just happens to be an Android based device, so it could be that Apple has Android in its sights. Personally I believe this entire complaining lark is somewhat getting out of hand and surely both Apple and HTC are big enough to get round a table and bash out the matter to resolve any issues.

To be honest it must be costing these companies a fortune in legal costs, money that could be better spent delivering exceptional devices to the public rather than thrown at lawyers in the name of co9nstant bickering, but there you go, that’s the way of big business, and no doubt it will continue no matter how long and how much it takes, and to be perfectly honest there are so many of them flying around I lose track.