HTC Granted Dusseldorf Court’s Injunction Against IPCom

Taipei, Dec. 22, 2011 (CENS)--The Taiwan-based HTC Corp., now the world’s largest supplier of smartphones running Android, has gained the upper hand in the patent-violation dispute against the German patent holding company, IPCom, as a local court in Dusseldorf granted just a few days ago the Taiwanese company a preliminary injunction that bans the rival’s legal actions taken to threaten retailers in the country.

Seeming unwilling to wait for the court’s final determination on its patent-infringement lawsuit filed a few months ago against HTC, IPCom has continually sent mails to HTC’s German retailers since late October, warning that it would take legal actions against those still selling HTC’s smartphones involved in the case.

But, the Düsseldorf court weighing in on the dispute has decided to ban the German company from threatening local retailers, hence announcing the above mentioned preliminary injunction, which has been confirmed by HTC’s lawyers handling the lawsuit. The good news, market observers said, has helped to relieve HTC’s shareholders, who have been anxious that IPCom’s actions would constitute huge impact on the Taiwanese company’s sales in Germany.

While getting the preliminary win in the patent-infringement battle against IPCom, HTC, nonetheless, is expected to suffer lackluster business performance in the fourth quarter of 2011, mainly because hot sales of iPhone 4S have eroded HTC’s smartphone sales in the U.S.

Although HTC’s new LTE (long term evolution)-enabled phone, Rezound, has been jointly promoted by U.S.’s largest telecom company, Verizon, in the U.S. since early November 2011, the Taiwanese company is deemed unable to gain any considerable growth momentum from the 4G phone model in the fourth quarter, noted institutional investors, considering that the new product was launched later than expected.