Yesterday we broke news that Nokia was going after HTC, rather STMicroelectronics, for using Nokia’s exclusive microphone. Well this isn’t about that. This is another patent that Nokia was targeting HTC and Android with. One of the patent infringement claim against HTC got dismissed today from the District Court of Mannheim, Germany. The patent that we are referring to is described as “a communication network terminal for accessing internet” which basically describes a terminal that can be used to access the internet.
Foss Patents also pointed out that this patent dismissal today was part of an ongoing case with the collaboration of Google and Android OEMs that have been targeted by Nokia which are regarding claims against the Google Play Store. “Nokia had alleged that Android’s app architecture centered around the Google Play store infringes the ‘016 patent because of the way it allows third-party app developers to provide data to the end-user devices on which their programs run via a Google-operated server,” Foss Patents notes.
So this small victory today, marks a victory for Google beyond HTC, but HTC did issue a statement this afternoon exclaiming it’s “delight” over the court’s ruling. HTC states in today’s statement that out of the 24 patent infringements that Nokia have brought against HTC in Germany, two have stayed because of concerns over validity, and three have been dismissed outright. So this really casts serious doubt over the strength of Nokia’s patent portfolio. HTC is also remaining positive and to end their statement HTC says “HTC is delighted with this decision.”
There’s one more patent dismissed. It’s pretty cool seeing patents like this getting dismissed. Not just Apple patents, but now Nokia as well. We’re hoping we’ll hear more about the exclusive microphone that’s in the HTC One pretty soon. As that should be a case against the component supplier not HTC. We’ll be sure to report on that once we hear more.