HTC is hailing the decision of a British...

HTC is hailing the decision of a British appeals court lifting an injunction that has kept HTC phones from shipping in the U.K. amid allegations that they infringe a Nokia European patent (EP 0 998 024). As a result of the decision, “we will immediately resume shipment of all of our devices into the UK, including the entire HTC One family,” HTC said in a statement. “Similarly, our customers should feel confident in their ability to promote and sell all HTC devices. Even though we plan to aggressively appeal the validity decision of Nokia’s EP 0 998 024 patent, we will continue to work with our chip suppliers on alternative solutions to ensure minimal disruption to our business in the future.” Nokia hasn’t commented on the court’s decision. Although the patent at issue is full of high-level math, it boils down to a simple aim -- simplifying the filters used to get rid of interference noise in a multi-band cellphone designed for use in different countries, our patent search found. Conventionally, Nokia wrote in 1998 when the patent was first filed, many filters were used to cope with the varied frequency bands used by mobile networks in different countries. Nokia’s patent describes a single, switched, filter early in the signal path, so the phone can be made smaller and still work reliably on all frequencies in all countries. In the patent, Nokia claims very broad legal monopoly to this basic idea. This strategy makes it easier for Nokia to argue that competitors are infringing. However, the broad claim also makes it easier for Nokia’s competitors to argue that what the patent claims was not truly new when the patent was first filed in Finland in October 1998, thereby rendering the patent invalid.