HTC says it outmanoeuvred Ipcom in patent battle

TAIWANESE PHONE MAKER HTC has responded to a demand by patent firm Ipcom to stop selling its 3G products in Germany, claiming that the disputed patent is invalid and that it has "legally outmanoeuvred" Ipcom.

HTC issued a statement about the patent battle, suggesting that recent events are not a win for Ipcom, as it has claimed, but actually a setback.

HTC said that it decided to drop its appeal because it believed that the Karlsruhe Court of Appeal would not have reinstated an injunction against its products since the Federal Patents Court (FPC) ruled that the patent in question was invalid.

The company said that this FPC ruling renders the 2009 verdict, upon which Ipcom rests the majority of its case, inconsequential, and that it expects the German Supreme Court to agree with it on this matter.

It also said that even if the patent was valid, HTC has implemented a design workaround that puts its products outside the remit of that patent.

HTC also highlighted a number of other claims that Ipcom had initially made relating to many of its other patents. It pointed out that two of them were dismissed by the District Court of Mannheim, four were withdrawn by Ipcom when its cases were deemed unsustainable, and four others are awaiting a decision on their validity.

"IPCom is now seeking to enforce rights in a patent claim that it knows to be invalid," HTC said. "Despite almost four years of litigation, IPCom has failed to achieve one significant victory against Nokia or HTC and failed to secure any damages. On the contrary, IPCom is liable to both HTC and Nokia for substantial sums in legal costs resulting from its many losses."

Nokia is appealing a ruling relating to a similar patent that Ipcom claims it infringed. HTC has supported Nokia in this dispute, citing a High Court finding in the UK that there were six alternative implementations of the 3G technology in question that do not infringe the patent, which should put both mobile companies in the clear.

HTC said that the original injunction only applied to a single, obsolete phone, that it now has an alternative implementation of the 3G standard, that it is willing to fight any so-called "Zwangsgeldverfahren", or penalty system, at the District Court of Mannheim, that it is confident that the court will find in its favour, and that it has planned for all contingencies.

"IPCom's current strategy is one of desperation because it has been legally outmanoeuvred," the HTC statement reads. "HTC remains convinced that this case will have NO material impact on our business."

The INQUIRER has contacted Ipcom for comment on HTC's claims and we are awaiting a response.

Update
Bernhard Frohwitter, managing director of Ipcom, responded to HTC's claims, calling its comments "incorrect", "ridiculous" and "misleading" and denying that Ipcom ever conceded that its amended patent claim was not infringed.

He claimed that HTC was being deceptive in its description that the patent in question is invalid, raising the point that it also says the patent claim has been amended. He said that Ipcom's patent is valid and that HTC has infringed it. He also said he doesn't see the relevance of pointing out other patents that are under appeal.

Frohwitter argued that if HTC was so certain of its victory, why did it withdraw its appeal on the last day "after megatons of arguments"? He also said that it is not credible that HTC has implemented an alternative 3G standard, claiming that an honest businessperson would have gone to court over the matter to "serve us such a blow".

He dismissed HTC's claim that the original ruling only related to one phone, saying that it was a " representative example for each and any 3G phone". He also dismissed the six variations of the standard as not relating to the standard at all and questioned what exact contingencies HTC has in place. µ