Nokia Wins Patent Lawsuit Against HTC

Nokia has won a patent lawsuit against HTC in Germany after the Mannheim Regional Court agreed with Nokia's arguments. Nokia has also secured a sales ban, subject to posting a US$6.5 million bond with the court first.

The infringing devices -- the Wildfire S, Desire S, and Rhyme -- are no longer sold in the country, making the sales ban ineffective. However, patent blogger, Florian Mueller wrote that the judgment is not so clear and that a sales ban may be applied to more than those three smartphones.

The patent concerns a power-saving feature found in Qualcomm supplied chips. The function can be easily disabled though, which would allow HTCto continue to use the same baseband chips without major modifications to their handsets.

In its defense, HTC said: "The power-saving technology described in this patent is trivial and contributes only a negligible reduction in power-consumption."

HTC says that it will appeal against the ruling anyway.

Nokia is also asserting the same patent (EP0673175) in separate lawsuits in the UK and USA.