Post 12 - Nokia vs HTC

With all the recent press about the ongoing Samsung v apple patent war, it seems like another large battle has slipped through the cracks: Nokia vs. HTC.

In general, it seems that Nokia has asserted 31 of its patents against HTC. Today, the Mannheim Regional Court dismissed two of those cases, while the other 29 are still being carried out.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/german-court-dismisses-two-nokia-patent.html

The interesting part is to look at the 2 patents that were dismissed, and to think about why it happened. One of them was about Google Play, formerly known as the "Android Market". Nokia owns patent EP0812120 on a "method for using services offered by a telecommunications network, a telecommunications system and a terminal for it." It is asserting this patent against ViewSonic as well, not just HTC. The second patent concerned a light guide system that uses light sensors to measure the brightness of the phone's environment, and adjust the screen's brightness appropriately.

What these two patents have in common is that I could see both of them going either way. HTC does have a light guide, but it is just a hole that doesn't actually "guide" the light. Thus the case seems kind of neutral - HTC did steal the idea, but they didn't infringe on the patent per say.

Same goes for Google Play: HTC did indeed copy the Google Play idea, but the court decided that Nokia's patents refer to 1990s technology and therefore aren't relevant to modern mobile Internet devices.

Since both of these cases seem pretty even and I could see either of them going either way, it is interesting to see that the court took the defensive on both and ruled against Nokia. To me, it seems that judges are doing their best to discourage litigation like this, which I don't blame them for given the ridiculous amount of patent wars going on right now. When the case is close, the judges simply dismiss it, hoping that future companies will predict this behavior and not file litigation in the first place.

I don't mean to trivialize the jobs of the judges of course, nor do I intend to imply that they are making unfair calls. But in their situation, I would do the same thing. All this patent litigation is hurting innovation, and costing the judiciary system much time and money. I think they should do their best to discourage it as much as possible.