Friday's ruling responds to one of two ITC complaints filed against HTC by Apple. HTC has also filed its own ITC complaint against Apple.

HTC said it didn't have access yet to the full opinion, and it sought to downplay the decision.

"Apple filed suit on 10 of its patents against HTC, but based on the judge's initial decision today only prevailed on 2 of those patents. HTC will vigorously fight these two remaining patents through an appeal before the ITC Commissioners who make the final decision," Grace Lei, general counsel for HTC, said in a statement.

"We are confident we have a strong case for the ITC appeals process and are fully prepared to defend ourselves using all means possible," she said.

HTC also noted that the ITC has ruled that Apple infringed patents assigned to S3Graphics, a company HTC is in the process of acquiring, as part of a separate investigation.