Taiwan''s HTC Corp. has triggered a longer legal battle against Apple Inc. after filing new complaints with patents acquired from Google Inc., the owner of the popular Android operating system, an analyst said recently, according to Focus Taiwan.  

Earlier on Wednesday, HTC amended its existing complaints filed on Aug. 16 with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) and U.S. District Court of Delaware, as well as an additional case in Delaware, for patent infringement by Apple's iOS devices and Mac computers. 

HTC filed the new claim with nine patents it bought from Google Inc. last week, which originated from Palm Inc., Motorola Inc. and Openwave Systems Inc., and were transferred to Google within the past year, according to Bloomberg News. 

"Now HTC is backed by a military warehouse, but it is questionable whether the company can hit its target precisely with these bullets," Joey Yen, a senior analyst at International Data Corp. (IDC), told CNA by telephone. 

"Currently, these bullets appear at least to disturb HTC's rival. It's a part of a patent battle that consists of many waves of attacks and defenses," Yen said. 

She said Google will not give up its key partners in the Android camp at this stage, including Samsung Electronics Co., which has encountered several setbacks in sales of its Galaxy smartphones and tablet PCs due to patent infringement claims by Apple. 

The global intellectual property battle began in April. Apple has said Samsung's Galaxy line of mobile phones and tablets "slavishly" copied the iPhone and iPad, and it has sued the Korean firm in the United States.