HTC One Mini Banned In The UK After Nokia Wins Patent Case

Nokia has won a patent infringing battle against HTC, leading to the ban of sales of the HTC One Mini in the UK.

The UK High Court found in October that HTC had infringed Nokia’s European patent number 0998024, described as a ‘modular structure for a transmitter and a mobile station’. As a result, Judge Richard Arnold ruled today that HTC can no longer sell its One Mini smartphone in the UK.

HTC had tried to argue that the microchips found to infringe Nokia’s patent were “a very small component” and therefore did not justify a sales ban. It also claimed that HTC does not compete with Nokia in the UK, because its smartphones run Google’s Android operating system while Nokia’s running Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS.

However, Nokia dismissed these arguments, claiming that it has “lost sales of Lumia phones since the launch of the One range.” HTC sold about 715,000 smartphones worth about £221 million in the UK between January and September, according to court documents.

HTC’s flagship One smartphone was also found to infringe the patent, but a ban has been delayed to give HTC time to appeal. Judge Arnold said in his ruling that blocking UK sales of the One would cause “considerable” damage to HTC’s UK business.