Full details of the court ruling in Nokia-ST Microelectronics-HTC case (HAAC microphones) is out now. It seems court has taken HTC to be blameless saying that the manufacturer didn’t know about exclusivity agreement between Nokia and ST Micro. Though it is hard to digest that HTC didn’t know about HAAC mics as they have boasted about it on their blog post as if it is their own innovation and secondly they have copied Lumia design and low-light imaging tech already.
Anyways, HTC is still in big problem here, because though court hasn’t forced a ban on HTC One, but ruled that ST Micro can’t sell the HAAC mics to anyone but Nokia till Feb 2014. In case ST Micro tries to sell it will have to pay compensation of 50,000 Euro per microphone supplied to other manufacturers, this with a maximum of EUR 1 million.
So, HTC can’t use HAAC mics on its HTC One anymore as there will be no further supply and will have to change the component resulting in huge expenses in testing and replacing the HAAC mics with the new inferior component. So, it will suffer both delays and quality compromise and will lose a big talking point. It may be a possibility that they finally bend and license it from Nokia, but it will be interesting to see!!
Thanks Neil for the Tip. Cheers!!
