A few weeks ago we posted an article on the Nokia VS HTC Patent case but yesterday it took a turn for the worse with the HTC One Mini being banned in the UK. This led to the HTC One successor being discussed in court.

In the official ruling, Judge Richard Arnold stated that February and March next year would be a vulnerable period for HTC, as that is when the HTC One follow up is going to be unveiled and launched world wide.

Nokia presented evidence that HTC's next flagship could infringe on the same patents that the HTC One and HTC One Mini had been infringing and attempted to get an injunction before it could even be revealed. However, the judge could not grant this injunction:

“I am bound to say I am somewhat sceptical about this evidence given that HTC will shortly be launching a new flagship phone which cannot be assumed to infringe and therefore be caught by the injunction.”

It's not all good news though, the HTC One Mini has been banned so it's quite possible that the HTC One and One Max will get the same treatment. The new HTC flagship is said to be codenamed the HTC M8 and this latest leak suggests that we'll see it in Q1 of 2014.

KitGuru Says: I wouldn't want to see the HTC One banned, it's a very nice phone and getting it banned isn't going to suddenly make people buy Nokia handsets. The patent that's being infringed on was filed in 1998, which was many years before smartphones were even around so it all seems a little silly. Patent abuse is everywhere these days which is cause for some kind of reform to the system. 

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