We understand that Germany has been host to a lot of patent battles. Recently we have witnessed Samsung taking a hit at the hands of Apple in one of the German courts.
There was a similar battle brewing between HTC Corp and IPCom since 2009, but failed to get a lot of media attention last year or even most part of 2011. But recently it has been in the news again after HTC withdrew its appeal against the IPCom’s appeal for injunction.
Which essentially means that IPCom can press and execute injunction against HTC’s 3G devices in Germany with immediate effect, which is what all the news agencies across the globe have been talking about.
Though it is known that HTC withdrew the appeal since the German Federal Patent Court ruled IPCom’s patent EP11886189 as invalid in December of 2010, but this ruling as per FossPatents, is yet to take effect and in the meanwhile IPCom can go ahead and execute the injunction.
Amongst all the hullabaloo, the most important thing is that HTC has stated in its press release that even if the court ruling is in favour of IPCom, HTC will not be affected as they have modified their implementation of the UMTS standard used in their 3G devices. Hence, it is highly unlikely that HTC’s sales and business will get affected by the IPCom patent injunction.
It is thus, we think that the talks of HTC 3G devices getting banned in Germany is a bit premature and its sales in the holiday season might just go uninterrupted.
