A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday affirmed a win for Apple Inc, HTC Corp and ZTE Corp against allegations that imports of their devices infringe wireless-technology patents.

The companies' smartphones, smart watches, tablets and other LTE-capable devices do not violate INVT SPE LLC's rights in two patents originally owned by Panasonic, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said.

INVT is a patent-holding company affiliated with investment funds managed by Fortress Investment Group LLC, a SoftBank Group Corp subsidiary.

U.S. Circuit Judge Raymond Chen wrote the devices did not infringe one of INVT's patents because they functioned differently than what is described in the patent. The devices were not capable of receiving and handling data signals in the same way as INVT's patented technology, the appeals court said.

The Federal Circuit also found the patent was not essential to the LTE standard, and that the devices did not infringe simply by being LTE capable. For more, read the full Reuters report.