Can things get much worse for HTC? Not only are they apparently struggling to keep up with demand for the One Mini but now, they’re going to have go back to the drawing board on certain parts of the original One, thanks to Nokia. The HTC One has been found to infringe upon a couple of patents held by Nokia, and so the ITC could very well put in place a sales ban on the HTC One if they uphold Nokia’s victory in January. As Engadget reports, this gives HTC quite a bit of time to work things out however, and that’s just what they’re going to do.
HTC is said to be working with Qualcomm in order to boost reception quality using their own radio components. Such a thing could help HTC dodge a very nasty sales ban at a time when they need to sell every smartphone that they can. This has happened in the past as HTC accidentally infringed on a microphone patent held by Nokia. However, in that case, HTC wasn’t entirely to blame and it was Nokia’s contractor that was at fault, selling HTC the parts that they didn’t have the right to do so. Impact thanks to this latest tangle with Nokia should be minimal however, as the company has said that a plan is underway to avoid “business disruption”, which is exactly the sort of disruption a business doesn’t want, we’d imagine.
Overall, this is another case of patents causing more damage than harm. Sure, in this case HTC should have enough time to dodge the proverbial bullet but, if they weren’t able to then HTC could be forced to take their devices off of shelves. We can’t help but feel a little bit for Nokia however, as Mr Elop has essentially sold the company out and just like their new owner, patents could become a much bigger earner than their Windows Phone devices.