“HTC, the world’s fourth-biggest smartphone maker by shipment volume, has been told to withdraw all of its 3G devices from sale in Germany within days,” Robin Kwong and James Wilson report for The Financial Times. “The ultimatum, from Germany’s IPCom, leaves the Taiwanese company facing potential fines or sales disruption.”
“The latest round of the legal battle between the companies comes after HTC withdrew an appeal against a patent infringement claim won in Germany in 2009 by IPCom, which licenses patents for a range of mobile phone uses,” Kwong and Wilson report. “After the withdrawal of the appeal, IPCom is demanding that HTC comply with the 2009 judgment and stop sales and distribution of all its 3G devices in Germany. IPCom said it would otherwise ask courts to begin a procedure that would impose a fine on HTC per handset sold.”
Kwong and Wilson report, “IPCom’s action comes just ahead of a final decision, expected in early December, by the US’s International Trade Commission in the case of Apple vs HTC. The iPhone maker won a preliminary ruling in July when the court found HTC had infringed two of Apple’s patents, while last month HTC lost one of the two countersuits it brought against Apple.”
Read more in the full article here.
Florian Mueller writes for FOSS Patents, “HTC found itself between a rock and a hard place and decided to take the rock. IPCom’s patent filing and litigation tactics were too sophisticated. The law firm behind IPCom knows its stuff. Now we may see some kind of cat-and-mouse game as HTC may try to somehow generate revenues in Germany despite the injunction, but in that game, HTC will have to outmaneuver not only IPCom but also Judge Voß of the Mannheim Regional Court. In other words, one of Germany’s leading patent law firms and one of Germany’s best patent judges are going to ensure that HTC complies.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The chickens continue coming home to roost.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “David E.” for the heads up.]