HTC 'One Mini' faces UK ban after court ruling on patent infringement

HTC Corp will have to stop the sale of its One Mini smartphone in Britain from December 6 after a court ruled the Taiwanese company had infringed patents owned by Finnish rival Nokia.

Justice Richard Arnold of the England and Wales High Court had said in an October ruling that HTC's One phones contain microchips that infringe Nokia's patents entitled "modulator structure for a transmitter and a mobile station.

On Tuesday, the judge granted Nokia a final injunction to stop HTC from continuing to infringe the patent. But he allowed HTC a partial stay so that it can continue selling its flagship One model pending an appeal, because a ban would cause "considerable damage" to HTC's UK business.

Nokia in a statement said "pending the appeal, HTC has undertaken not to ship any more of the infringing products into the UK, except the HTC One, which it may continue to sell until the conclusion of any appeal."

"If HTC does not succeed on appeal, the injunction will take effect on all infringing products. Nokia is also claiming financial compensation for the infringement of this patent."

The judge said on Tuesday that he had decided to grant a stay for HTC's One handset because the potential harm to HTC of a ban outweighed the harm to Nokia.

But for the smaller One Mini, he said the balance came down in favour of refusing a stay because HTC had designed and launched it when it knew it was facing a claim for infringement of the patent.

The smartphone maker launched its HTC One brand in March followed by the launch of One Mini.

Copyright: Thomson Reuters 2013