11 March 2013Patents

HTC scores double victory in Nokia patent case

Taiwanese smartphone-maker HTC scored two separate victories against Nokia last week in their continuing patent litigation in Germany.

On Friday the District Court of Mannheim rejected Nokia’s claims that the Android-licensor infringed two patents, saying its arguments were unconvincing.

The ‘120 patent protects a “method for using services offered by a telecommunication network, a telecommunication system and a terminal for it”, which the Finnish company said was infringed by HTC’s distribution of the Google Play store, a mandatory feature of the Android platform.

Separately, Nokia claimed that light sensors on HTC’s devices measuring the brightness of the environment infringed a ‘974 patent protecting an “electronic display device and lighting control method of same”.

The patents are two of 45 inventions named in a suit that Nokia brought against HTC (as well as RIM and Viewsonic) in the US and Germany, in May 2012. Since then, Friday’s rulings are the first to cover any of the named listed in either country.

HTC said that Nokia is trying to “extract unwarranted licensing royalties from Android handset manufacturers” and it will continue trying to invalidate both patents before courts in Germany and the UK.

Nokia said it disagreed with the court’s decision and was “considering our options”, adding: “As we said in May 2012, we took these actions to end HTC’s unauthorised use of our proprietary innovations and technologies.”

Nokia is expected to press on with its remaining claims against HTC in Germany – believed to number about 29 – with the next ruling in the dispute set for March 19 at the same court in Mannheim.

Friday’s ruling doesn’t change the overall picture dramatically, said Hosea Haag, a lawyer at Ampersand in Munich, noting that Nokia has asserted a large number of patents against HTC.

He said he believes Nokia, which was the leading mobile phone maker until the dawn of the smartphone, is using its patents in an attempt to boost sales of its current phones as they compete against the likes of Apple and Samsung’s.

Germany has become an increasingly important battleground in the so-called smartphone wars in the past three years. Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Microsoft and Google-owned Motorola Mobility have all either filed or defended against patent claims in the country.

Haag said German courts are known for handing down fast and reliable decisions in patent cases, particularly because under its bifurcation system, infringement and validity are handled separately. This means, unlike in the UK, courts do not scrutinise the validity of patents when they are alleged to have been infringed.

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