Nokia Corporation (NOK), the Finnish handset manufacturer, won a lawsuit against Taiwan’s HTC Corporation in Germany. HTC had been accused of infringing on Nokia’s power saving patent.
The German court agreed with Nokia’s arguments that HTC has violated its power saving technology, which saves battery life when connected to a network. Nokia could also enforce a sales ban by posting a $6.5 million bond and also possess the right to claim damages.
The case is one of the 22 impending lawsuits that Nokia has filed against HTC in Germany, alleging that a number of HTC’s products infringe Nokia’s patents. Nokia has also filed similar lawsuits against HTC in UK and USA’s International Trade Commission. The U.S. hearing is expected to start in two months’ time.
HTC has argued that the ruling is not of much significance as the company has already stopped selling the handsets, namely, Wildfire S, Desire S and Rhyme. HTC has also decided to challenge the court’s decision. However, Nokia recently lost a patent lawsuit against HTC in Germany over the use of Google Inc.’s (GOOG) play app and content store client app in Android based devices.
Nokia has the strongest patent portfolio in the wireless industry and has spent almost $62 billion in research and development in the last two decades. Furthermore, the company has patent licensing agreements with around 41 mobile handset manufacturers, who use its patents. Nokia receives a healthy royalty from this licensing agreement and would give its best to protect the wireless patents.
Nokia has also charged Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Research In Motion Limited. (BBRY) with a patent case and has been successful in winning it.
Although Nokia still has a dozen of patent infringement claims against HTC, We believe. Nokia will be satisfied with the decision as it only adds to the series of patent wins that the company has received in the last couple of years. The decision will strengthens Nokia’s position against HTC as the company continues with its attempt to increase the popularity of Windows based devices.
Nokia currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
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