Last May Nokia
announced a serious patent offensive against several companies,
one of which is HTC. According to FOSS Patents, today a German court
awarded Nokia a patent injunction based on power saving technology it has
patents for, and it claims is infringed upon by Qualcomm chips used in HTC's
phones. While some of its other cases in Germany were stayed or dismissed, this
ruling could be used by Nokia against HTC even during a potential appeal. We'll
see if this is resolved in the courtroom or by some sort of license agreement,
in the meantime we've contacted both companies for more information on the
latest round of patent lawsuit bingo.
Update: Nokia has responded, mentioning that it has
30 other patents asserted against HTC in the US, UK and Germany, with a US case
scheduled to start in two months. You can read its response in full after the
break.
Update 2: HTC tells us that its German business will
not be affected by the ruling, and that its newer handsets do not use the
technology in question. You can also read their statement in full after the
break.
Nokia:
Nokia is pleased
with this decision, which confirms the quality of Nokia's patent portfolio.
Nokia has also patented this power saving invention in the US, UK, France,
Italy, Sweden, Austria, Japan and Hong Kong. In addition to this case in
Germany, we have asserted the patent against HTC in the UK and in the US
International Trade Commission, with a hearing in the US scheduled to start in
two months' time. More than 30 further Nokia patents have been asserted against
HTC in other actions brought by Nokia in Germany, the US and the UK. HTC must
now respect our intellectual property and compete using its own innovations.
HTC:
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]
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