March 6, 2009 by Tap
HTC is the current undisputed champion of the Android phone and it seems like nothing can stop them - until now that is, thanks to a German court ruling. According to a report on Handelsblatt.com, a Mannheim court has ruled in favour of patents license manager, IPCom, which had previously filed an injunction against HTC for supposedly infringing patents relating to Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), an integral part of 3G technology.
So what does this mean in practical terms? Well according to IPCom director Bernhard Frohwitter, they are willing to reach an agreement with HTC on licensing terms and if no agreement is reached, they will seek to block sales of any HTC phones that violate what he calls "100 series" patents. Now that's potentially bad news for anyone in Germany wanting a 3G HTC smartphone (including the T-Mobile G1/HTC Dream), and particularly bad news for Vodafone who are supposed to be launching the HTC Magic there in April.
The big question of course is just how far is IPCom prepared to go and will they seek to enforce these patents outside of Germany? IPCom GmBH has shown that it's not afraid to go to court having filed a similar (still pending) claim against Nokia (they've also set their sites on Google) but HTC seems confident that they will be able to appeal the ruling. According to HTC finance head Cheng Hui-ming, "Potentially there is a possibility of a small impact on our business, but as of now, we don't see how this ruling will impact our business or revenue." Let's just hope this doesn't turn into a drawn-out legal wrangle because in the end, it's usually the consumer that loses.
Source: Handelsblatt via Unwired View