Nokia granted injunction against HTC Android devices in German patent lawsuit.

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Update:

HTC’s flagship One series seems to have escaped unhurt from the injunction according to HTC’s press statement

On Sunday, HTC told Focus Taiwan that its One series of smartphones was not found to infringe and is, therefore, not affected by the Friday ruling. I had mentioned that Nokia had not succeeded on all of its claims (hence had to pick up 40% of the fees). The finding of non-infringement by HTC’s flagship phone is probably the explanation. I attended the announcement of the decision, but the detailed reasoning was provided only to parties’ counsel, not to the general public.

It is getting increasingly difficult for HTC to defy Nokia’s patent muscle and get away without paying licensing royalty. After UK, it is now turn of a German court to grant injunction against HTC devices for infringement of Nokia’s patent. In this case, it looks like all HTC Android devices which use “USB ports” for connecting to PC face the injunction and to be frank it covers nearly all of them.

Judge Andreas Mueller (“Müller” in German), the Presiding Judge of the 21st Civil Law Chamber of the Munich I Regional Court, just announced a ruling in Nokia’s favor. The court granted Nokia an injunction against HTC’s Android-based devices infringing EP1246071 on a “method of configuring electronic devices”, a key USB-related (but not standard-essential) patent.

Nokia has to post a bond or make a deposit of approximately 50 million euros ($68 million) in order to enforce all parts of the ruling including a recall of infringing devices from resellers. Nokia has reacted with following statement,

“Nokia is pleased that the Regional Court in Munich, Germany has today ruled that a number of HTC products infringe Nokia’s patent EP 1 246 071, which covers USB functionality in mobile phones.

Today’s judgment is another significant milestone in our on-going dispute with HTC, enabling Nokia to enforce an injunction against the import and sale of all infringing HTC products in Germany, as well as to obtain damages for past infringement. This patent is also already in suit against HTC in the UK.

Nokia began its actions against HTC in 2012, with the aim of ending HTC’s unauthorised use of Nokia’s proprietary innovations and has asserted more than 50 patents against HTC in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, UK and US. During 2013, HTC has been found to infringe Nokia patents in venues including the Regional Courts in Mannheim and Munich, Germany, the UK High Court and the US International Trade Commission.”

Nokia has now asserted 50 patents in 7 countries against HTC and won 2 major injunction orders including this, in 2 different markets.

Source: FOSS patents

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