An Amsterdam District Court this week granted Nokia’s request for an injunction against HTC One phones in the region.
At issue are microphone components produced by STMicroelectronics, which are used in Nokia Lumia and HTC One smartphones. Nokia, however, said it has exclusive rights to these components, prompting the lawsuit.
“HTC is disappointed in the decision,” the company said in a statement. “We are consulting with STM and will decide whether it is necessary to explore alternative solutions in due course. In the meanwhile, we do not expect this decision to have any immediate impact on our handset sales.”
Nokia said that it dissassembled an HTC One phone to find that the “dual membrane HDR” microphone, which can record high-quality audio, is the same type used on its own phones.
“HTC has no license or authorization from Nokia to use these microphones or the Nokia technologies from which they have been developed,” Nokia said in a statement.
It turns out that STMicroelectronics (the guys who designed the high-amplitude mics) forgot they had signed a 12-month exclusivity agreement with Nokia, and the Amsterdam district court is putting a 10-month ban on STMicro from selling the microphone to anyone but Nokia.The court went on to find that HTC was “blameless” in the matter, but they’ll still have to shop around elsewhere for a new microphone component. The HTC One is still available for sale in the Netherlands but nobody can say for how long. We will say this, being a smartphone manufacturer ain’t easy.
This isn’t the first problem faced by the HTC One. The phone’s launch was postponed due to a limited supply of cameras. The delay hammered the company’s first-quarter earnings.
