HTC One Going to be Banned in US, UK, Germany, Italy Etc.

[Alextodd1]

Recently i have heard that HTC lost patent infringement case against Nokia, and Soon HTC One is going to be banned in UK, US, Italy, Germany, Japan etc and later in France and Netherlands. So get your HTC ONE asap. Besides that, some other new HTC products are going to be banned as well.

 

[dazkil2103]

Could you get arrested for carrying an illegal device. If so would probably improve sales somewhat ;-)

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

[Dave Clark]

Link or it never happened...

 

[anon(7894520)]

Link or it never happened...

it is true that nokia (microsoft) and apple are both bullying htc with patent infringements and that they have recently lost a case in Europe. i have read that much. htc claims they are just buying third party components which supposedly use the patented technology (qualcomm chips, etc.)

------------------commencing rant--------------------

most of these patent wars today are just so bloody ridiculous because most of the technology is so widespread and knowledgeable by now and had it not been patented 5 years ago, the technology would certainly have been discovered by any company in the business today. further more, the companies who sue for patent infringements are content to leave anyone out of the dispute as long as they don't produce a better product than they do - such as the htc one. so instead of using their resources to produce an even better product they try to to eliminate the competition in the court room.

one of the reasons htc is in such dire economic circumstances is because they have had to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the past few years to acquire patents to protect itself from these predators, and it still pays other companies royalties for every htc sold.

--------------------ending rant--------------------


it is not clear whether this will actually mean prohibiting the htc one in Europe as the OP claims, though.

 

[adriandb]

it is true that nokia (microsoft) and apple are both bullying htc with patent infringement

It isn't bullying to enforce patents. Companies, especially publicly traded companies, have to enforce their patents.

most of these patent wars today are just so bloody ridiculous

I totally agree, but it isn't the fault of the companies, the blame lies with the patent offices. They should be doing their jobs and actually researching patent applications before approving them. It seems most patent offices are taking the stance of "we'll approve anything because we don't have the tech expertise to determine if this is patentable and just let the courts figure it out." This seems like the wrong way to do it IMHO, but what do I know.

 

[anon(8215685)]

Link or it never happened...

HTC Works With Qualcomm to Avoid U.S. Ban on Phones - WSJ.com

Nokia to Seek U.K. Sales Ban for HTC - WSJ.com

Nokia seeks ban on HTC One after it wins UK patent fight | ZDNet

 

[anon(7894520)]

It isn't bullying to enforce patents. Companies, especially publicly traded companies, have to enforce their patents.


I totally agree, but it isn't the fault of the companies, the blame lies with the patent offices. They should be doing their jobs and actually researching patent applications before approving them. It seems most patent offices are taking the stance of "we'll approve anything because we don't have the tech expertise to determine if this is patentable and just let the courts figure it out." This seems like the wrong way to do it IMHO, but what do I know.

it is bullying because they do it in a discriminatory fashion.

they all jumped the gun when they realised htc had a better product than they did.

 

[garyft]

So it looks like Nokia's only asset now will be patents, and it's only revenue stream will be licensing and infringement suits. So they've become a patent troll.

 

[adriandb]

it is bullying because they do it in a discriminatory fashion.

they all jumped the gun when they realised htc had a better product than they did.

Discriminatory? Are there companies out there violating their patents that aren't being sued? I believe they filed the lawsuits after the product was released, because, ya know, filing the suit BEFORE HTC released their product wouldn't have made much sense. He quality of HTCs product has nothing to do with it.

 

[garublador]

it is bullying because they do it in a discriminatory fashion.

They can't pick and choose who they go after or else they'll lose their patents. Their only options are to go after everyone who they think violated the patents or potentially lose them. I agree that the issue isn't them defending their patents, it's them getting those patents in the first place. The problem with that is that the patent offices would require an insane amount of technical expertise to be able to process all of the patents at a rate that makes any sort of sense. They either have to be a bit too liberal with the patents or we'd have to wait so long to get a patent that the technology would be obsolete by the time it went through, rendering the approval process, which is necessary to have, useless.

 

[adriandb]

They can't pick and choose who they go after or else they'll lose their patents. Their only options are to go after everyone who they think violated the patents or potentially lose them. I agree that the issue isn't them defending their patents, it's them getting those patents in the first place. The problem with that is that the patent offices would require an insane amount of technical expertise to be able to process all of the patents at a rate that makes any sort of sense. They either have to be a bit too liberal with the patents or we'd have to wait so long to get a patent that the technology would be obsolete by the time it went through, rendering the approval process, which is necessary to have, useless.

They would need to ramp up their hiring of technical people, but at the same time, when companies started to get legitimate pushback on their crap patent filings they would stop filing crap patents. You would be left with companies only filing patents for the ones that mattered so they could avoid the situation you described.

I'm also not convinced that a more strict patent process wouldn't be a good thing.

 

[uh60james]

What is the "Modulator structure for a transmitter and a mobile station" anyway? Is this the same mic crap that was going on when the phone first launched? If so, why not go after the company that is actually manufacturing and supplying the component to HTC?

 

[Alextodd1]

What is the "Modulator structure for a transmitter and a mobile station" anyway? Is this the same mic crap that was going on when the phone first launched? If so, why not go after the company that is actually manufacturing and supplying the component to HTC?

Well I guess it has something to do with Signal processing, and besides that, there was another thing over which Nokia has sued them. Well HTC is the manufacturer of its phone, and they should look into everything before launching their device that whether they are infringing some one else's patents or not.

 

[Alextodd1]

They would need to ramp up their hiring of technical people, but at the same time, when companies started to get legitimate pushback on their crap patent filings they would stop filing crap patents. You would be left with companies only filing patents for the ones that mattered so they could avoid the situation you described.

I'm also not convinced that a more strict patent process wouldn't be a good thing.

You are right! The industry giant have literally made it a mode of making money over these Patents. Do you know Blackberry is also sitting on Patents worth $5 Million? I guess now they are the one who is going to start suing other companies as well! This thing should definitely be stopped, as the companies are focusing more on suing others rather than providing something innovative.

 

[garyft]

They can't pick and choose who they go after or else they'll lose their patents. Their only options are to go after everyone who they think violated the patents or potentially lose them. I agree that the issue isn't them defending their patents, it's them getting those patents in the first place. The problem with that is that the patent offices would require an insane amount of technical expertise to be able to process all of the patents at a rate that makes any sort of sense. They either have to be a bit too liberal with the patents or we'd have to wait so long to get a patent that the technology would be obsolete by the time it went through, rendering the approval process, which is necessary to have, useless.

That's not the way it works. You have to defend a trademark or you can lose it. A patent does not require a defense.

 

[adriandb]

That's not the way it works. You have to defend a trademark or you can lose it. A patent does not require a defense.

Yes, but as a publicly traded company you have to maximize shareholder value and operate in the shareholders best interest. Shareholders would be rightfully upset if a company was allowing patent infringement to go on unchecked.

The trademark defense analogy isn't directly applicable, but it's basically the same thing. They're bound by law to defend their patents, it's just a different legal structure than trademark defense.

 

[garyft]

Yes, but as a publicly traded company you have to maximize shareholder value and operate in the shareholders best interest. Shareholders would be rightfully upset if a company was allowing patent infringement to go on unchecked.

The trademark defense analogy isn't directly applicable, but it's basically the same thing. They're bound by law to defend their patents, it's just a different legal structure than trademark defense.

You are not bound by law to defend a patent. It may be expected by shareholders, but there is NO requirement to defend a patent, at least not in US law. Most companies do defend their patents but it's not a requirement.

 

[adriandb]

You are not bound by law to defend a patent. It may be expected by shareholders, but there is NO requirement to defend a patent, at least not in US law. Most companies do defend their patents but it's not a requirement.

But they are required to act in the best interest of shareholders and in this situation that means defending patents.

I mean, to look at this from the other angle, what is the benefit to these companies to NOT defend their patents?

 

[garyft]

But they are required to act in the best interest of shareholders and in this situation that means defending patents.

I mean, to look at this from the other angle, what is the benefit to these companies to NOT defend their patents?

There's a big difference between "acting in the best interest of shareholders" and "bound by law". My biggest problem here is that a company can violate a patent by buying a part from the exact same third party company. Maybe I'm missing something here, but from every article I've seen it looks like the court decided that HTC was violating Nokia's patent(s) by simply using the same Qualcomm components. That doesn't make sense to me.

 

[adriandb]

There's a big difference between "acting in the best interest of shareholders" and "bound by law".

Not really, not when it comes to the legal issues these companies could face if they didn't act in the best interest of their shareholders.

My biggest problem here is that a company can violate a patent by buying a part from the exact same third party company. Maybe I'm missing something here, but from every article I've seen it looks like the court decided that HTC was violating Nokia's patent(s) by simply using the same Qualcomm components. That doesn't make sense to me.

This seems suspect to me as well, I feel like I'm missing something. Maybe there was something in the implementation of the technology, but even the fact that something like that can be patented seems off.

I really think the solution is fewer patents, not less protection of them.