Nokia has managed to garner its fourth victory against HTC in Germany, its third in two months, in a patent infringement lawsuit that involves how a new device would manage backwards compatibility with networks running on older technologies.
The patent in question – EP1579613 – describes a “method and apparatus for enabling a mobile station to adapt its revision level based on network protocol revision level”.
The Mannheim Regional Court, Germany ruled that HTC did infringe on the patent and is liable for damages and ordered an injunction. According to Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, the patent is not standard-essential and even though HTC has license to Nokia’s standard-essential patents (SEPs) it would found to be infringing the patent as it doesn’t hold license to Nokia’s non-SEPs.
“Nokia is pleased that the Regional Court in Mannheim, Germany has today ruled that HTC products infringe Nokia’s patent EP 1 579 613 B1, which enables modern mobile devices to work in older networks”, said Nokia in an official statement after the ruling.
From the looks of it, Nokia will go ahead with an “injunction against the import and sale of all infringing HTC products in Germany” and may probably demand damages from the Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer.
Nokia won right to injunction against HTC One Mini in the UK back in early December last year; however, the Court of Appeal stayed the injunction in the country.
The Finnish company managed to win two patent lawsuits against HTC in Germany during the same month [here and here], which implicate all Android devices from HTC and puts them in danger of being pulled off the shelves.
