Smartphone player HTC claimed victory in a UK legal battle with Apple, with a judge ruling that the Taiwanese company had not infringed four patents asserted by the iPhone maker.

According to the BBC, Apple had said that HTC had breached its intellectual property related to features such as swipe to unlock, support for multilingual keypads and multitouch input.

The High Court ruled that three of the four patents asserted were invalid in this case, while the fourth was not applicable to HTC’s devices.

In a statement, HTC said that it is “pleased with the ruling, which provides further confirmation that Apple’s claims against HTC are without merit.”

Apple was characteristically tight-lipped following the judgement.

Apple and HTC are involved in numerous legal actions worldwide, and earlier this week the Cupertino company was denied an emergency injunction by the US International Trade Commission to prevent the import of HTC devices into the country.

HTC has previously seen delays to the availability of its devices in this market due to customs clearance issues following an earlier suit won by Apple.