Taiwan’s HTC Corp (宏達電) reassured investors on Saturday that the company’s smartphone sales in Germany would not be affected by the withdrawal of an appeal in a patent lawsuit involving German patent holding firm IPCom.
“We decided to withdraw our appeal since the federal Patent Court of Germany has questioned the validity of the patent in the case,” said Annie Liu, a spokeswoman for HTC.
“There is no need to appeal in the local court and the decision will not have any impact on our sales in Germany,” Liu added.
On Friday, HTC, the world’s fourth-largest smartphone vendor, withdrew an appeal against a judgement by a Mannheim court in February 2009 that ruled HTC had infringed on a patent owned by IPCom.
In response to HTC’s decision, IPCom said that it can execute the injunction it seeks on the sale and distribution of HTC’s 3G devices in Germany “in the shortest possible time.”
IPCom said that it would use the rights awarded by the courts, which will likely result in HTC devices disappearing from stores during the crucial Christmas shopping season.
The patent in question describes an algorithm that allows mobile telephony networks to assign priorities to users on the basis of a pre-defined hierarchy.
This provides for the smooth functioning of the system in emergencies, which can potentially save lives, according to IPCom.
It is one of the patent portfolios which was originally developed by Bosch as part of its research and development for its pioneering car telephony systems, which have evolved into the current mobile telephony systems.
IPCom bought these patents from Bosch in early 2007 and then used them to negotiate license agreements with a number of global companies, including Nokia and HTC.
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