If you thought that the HTC One delays are the only thing keeping HTC executives up at night, think again. Today, German courts handed Nokia a victory in one of its patent disputes with HTC. The outcome of the verdict is a permanent injunction on all HTC products which infringe on Nokia’s wireless power saving technology. The injunction can be enforced immediately, even before HTC has the opportunity to appeal the ruling.
Fortunately, the ruling and injunction will have little impact on HTC’s business. The patented technology in question was only ever used on the HTC Wildfire S, HTC Desire S and HTC Rhyme – three devices which are no longer imported in Germany. HTC has released a statement on the matter, stating that the Nokia’s power savings technology is ” trivial and contributes only a negligible reduction in power-consumption, so HTC has removed any allegedly corresponding functionality from all of its current German handsets as a precaution against any attempt by Nokia to extend the scope of the judgment unfairly.”
While we never like to see HTC lose any of its patent battles, we’re relieved to hear that Nokia’s win will not have any negative impact on German consumers who may be interested in purchasing an HTC phone. For more details on the case, check out HTC’s official statement below.
Today, the District Court of Mannheim handed down a judgment that HTC had infringed the German part of patent EP 0673175 (the ‘175 patent) entitled “Reduction of Power Consumption in a Mobile Station”. HTC is naturally disappointed with the decision of the court, as it believes that Nokia failed to prove its case adequately. However, as the judgment only covers three handsets that HTC no longer imports into Germany (the Wildfire S, Desire S and Rhyme), this judgment is of little significance. HTC’s German business will not be affected by it.
The power-saving technology described in this patent is trivial and contributes only a negligible reduction in power-consumption, so HTC has removed any allegedly corresponding functionality from all of its current German handsets as a precaution against any attempt by Nokia to extend the scope of the judgment unfairly. HTC will be appealing the present decision but also believes that this patent is invalid and so will be continuing with the invalidity actions pending before the German Federal Patents Court and the English Patents Court.
To date, of the twenty-two infringement actions that Nokia has brought against HTC in Germany, two (EP 1329982 and EP 1474750) have been stayed because of concerns over validity and two (EP 0812120 and EP 1312974) have been dismissed outright. This decision cannot be described as a ‘win’ for Nokia because it only applies to handsets that are no longer imported into Germany, and newer HTC handsets do not use the accused technology. As Nokia clearly went to great lengths to assert its strongest patents first, we are confident that its non-essential patent portfolio poses little threat to HTC.
Source: FOSS Patents
Courts sure like rolling out the injunctions every time HTC is about to release a new phone. Happy this doesn’t affect anything.