HTC One Mini Banned From UK Over Nokia Patents

The HTC One Mini will be banned in Britain, after a court ruled it infringed patents from rival Nokia. However, the company can continue selling its flagship phone, the HTC One, which infringes the same patents, while it appeals the decision.

A high Court judge had previously ruled that HTC’s One and One Mini phones both infringed a 1988 Nokia patent for the design of a modulator. However, HTC has been allowed to sell the HTC One, the phone with which it hopes will raise it from the relegation zone of phone makers, because a ban on sales of that phone would cause “considerable damage” to the company.

HTC One Mini adventure

HTC must stop selling the One Mini in Britain from December 6, because of the patent owned by Nokia, which Microsoft is buying. There is no appeal in this part of the case, because HTC launched the phone in July, after Nokia raised a complaint over the patent.

The phones use  the disputed modulator technology in processors which HTC bought from Qualcomm. The dispute invokes the knotty “exhausted doctrine” of US federal patent law, under which HTC says it can’t be sued for using the Nokia-patented technology because it bought the chips from Qualcomm. Nokia has an agreement not to sue Qualcomm for using the patented technology in chips which it then sells to several companies including HTC.

The case is complicated, because Nokia has registered the patent in Europe, and the chips are bought in Taiwan, so Nokia says the US law is not relevant.  The case is just one of several patent cases which Nokia is bringing against HTC.

The matter is serious for HTC, which has fallen from a previous position atop the smartphone tree, and is hoping the critically-acclaimed HTC One can restore its standing.

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