The Finnish tech giant, Nokia has filed patent complaints with US International Commission against HTC on Thursday. Nokia has filed two complaints and both encompass nine different patents. And until now Nokia has filed 50 patents against HTC across the globe.
The patent complaint filed by Nokia is about improved voice and data transfer, efficient outlining of internal parts in compactly designed models, global roaming capability, and improvement of apps which allows them share data across phones, video encoding and decoding and making use of new apps to maximize a device’s capabilities. Nokia claims that HTC has been using their proprietary innovations since quite some time. Hence, they had taking actions against HTC last year.
Nokia spokesperson also added that German courts have already confirmed that HTC has infringed Nokia’s patents and are being used in HTC products. However, HTC does not seem to show any signs of putting an end to what it has been doing. HTC has started passing the buck by saying the issue was caused because of suppliers. Hence, Nokia has decided to take further action against the Taiwanese company to hold them accountable.
A recent report shows that Nokia has filed issue against usage of Broadcom and Qualcomm chips on HTC devices. If HTC is found guilty, all the devices that contain this chip including the flagship HTC One could be banned and its sales would be stopped.
Nokia filed a second suit on 24th May and it covers three issues namely terminal, method and computer programming. Nokia claims that ten smartphones from HTC are violating these patents. HTC fans may be disappointed to know that HTC One and HTC First which are one of the best selling smartphones from HTC in the recent times have been found to infringe Nokia’s patents.
Nokia Corp is not the only company that is taking on the Taiwanese company. Apple had filed case against HTC in the past. Also, Samsung’s suit against HTC was being covered by news reporters for quite some time. Last year, Apple had filed patent complaint against Korean tech giant Samsung and the consequence was that Samsung had to cough up $1.049 billion as penalty to Apple. The legal battle between Apple and Samsung is going to continue next year.
Until now HTC has not spoken anything about the patent suit filed by Nokia. Recently, many executives left HTC which has brought the company’s management system under criticism. Even though HTC is trying to churn good smartphones, it is unable to keep with the smartphones produced by giants like Samsung and Apple.