19 March 2013Patents

HTC found liable in latest Nokia patent dispute

A German court has upheld Nokia’s complaint that three of HTC’s smartphones infringed its European patents for battery-saving technology.

In a decision published on Tuesday, March 19, Holger Kircher, a judge at Mannheim’s district court, found HTC’s Wildfire S, Desire S and Rhyme models had infringed Nokia’s EP 0673175 “for the reduction of power consumption in a mobile station”. The judgment follows a trial on February 5.

Nokia has now been granted a permanent injunction banning HTC from selling the infringing devices and is also seeking damages and a recall of all infringing handsets.

But Hogan Lovells LLP, which represented HTC, said in a statement that the 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”.

Hogan Lovells also confirmed that HTC will be filing an appeal against the court’s decision and will continue to challenge the patent’s validity.

“The power-saving technology described in this patent is trivial and contributes only a negligible reduction in power-consumption … 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,” the statement added.

A spokesperson for Nokia said the company is pleased with the ruling.

“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. HTC must now respect our intellectual property and compete using its own innovations,” he said.

Nokia has brought 22 patent infringement claims against HTC in Germany,  two of which were dismissed by a Mannheim judge last week. HTC is countersuing Nokia in two cases involving its own power-management technology patents.

Ulrich Blumenröder, a partner at Grünecker Kinkeldey Stockmair & Schwanhäusser in Munich, said HTC appears to have complied with the decision by only selling products it claims are non-infringing in Germany.

Nokia can now opt to enforce its injunction against sales of infringing HTC devices during an appeal if it pays security of 5 million Euros.

“The interesting question appears to be whether HTC’s allegation of currently not selling infringing products is true and whether Nokia dares to enforce—I consider an enforcement to be possible,” Blumenröder added.

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