Nokia bans all HTC Android-based devices in Germany over the use of Android Beam
HTC’s string of bad luck continues, this time in in Germany where Judge Dr. Matthias Zigann has just granted Nokia a permanent sales injunction against their rival’s handsets, effectively banning the sale of all Android-based devices made by the Taiwanese manufacturer.
Of course, all of this had to do with patents — patents like EP1148681 which deals with peer-to-peer sharing via NFC over a Bluetooth connection (but not WiFi). You know, just a little feature baked into the core Android OS. Because this isn’t considered a standard-essential patent, Nokia doesn’t have to license it under FRAND terms.
HTC is currently being sued by Nokia in 7 different countries including Germany, the US, UK, France, Italy, Netherlands, and Japan. HTC is likely to appeal the decision while Google makes an attempt at invalidating the patent. In the meantime, we expect some sort of over-the-air update to sidestep Nokia’s patent, a move HTC is all too familiar with. Yay, for software patents. (Sarcasm).
[FOSS Patents | via Engadget]