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Nokia has won an important injunction in Germany that could see the company put an end to sales of HTC’s devices in Germany.
Earlier on Monday, judge Dr. Matthias Zigann of the Munich I Regional Court ruled that Nokia should be awarded an injunction against all HTC Android handsets over an alleged violation of a patent that describes a “method for transferring resource information” via NFC or Bluetooth, FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller reported. The Nokia patent is decidedly broad in its brief description, but the magistrate ruled HTC’s devices were enough of an alleged infringement that it warranted a ruling for Nokia.
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The ruling puts HTC in a bad situation in Germany. Unless the company can win a chance to appeal the ruling, Nokia can enforce the injunction and stop all sale of HTC devices. What’s more, the injunction is permanent, meaning an eventual Nokia victory could see HTC’s allegedly infringing devices kept off store shelves forever.
Nokia presents a potentially worrisome proposition to HTC and all other Android vendors. The patent is essentially describing a way for handset makers to transfer data wirelessly between devices. And although it doesn’t include Wi-Fi, near-field communication and Bluetooth have become staples in Android handsets.
Nokia and HTC have been waging a patent battle for quite some time, and earlier this month, the Lumia maker won another case against HTC. That case would have required HTC to remove devices from store shelves, but the company made a modification that sidestepped the alleged infringement. Whether it can do the same this time around is unknown.
The Nokia-HTC news comes just after reports out of Korea say that Apple and Samsung are reportedly attempting to come to terms over their ongoing patent disputes. If successful, the companies could sign a cross-licensing deal and Apple would be awarded a sum for alleged Samsung infringements.
