A local court in Duesseldorf has granted Taiwan-based HTC a preliminary injunction against Germany-based patent owner IPCom in the patent-violation dispute, reports Cens. This bans IPCom's legal actions taken to threaten retailers in the country. 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 action against those still selling HTC's smartphones involved in the case. The Duesseldorf court weighing in on the dispute has decided to ban the German company from threatening local retailers. IPCom confirmed it has sued German retailers for patent infringement of its patent #100A by selling HTC 3G handsets in Germany. The patent #100A is a divisional of the internationally adopted standard algorithm #100, originally developed by Bosch as part of its R&D for car telephony systems. IPCom had sent about 100 cease and desist requests to German retailers on 6 December, asking them to stop selling the handsets until 20 December. The District court in Mannheim ruled against HTC in 2009 in a patent fight with IPCom, allowing an injunction against sales of HTC phones using UMTS technology. HTC appealed against the court ruling, but dropped the appeal on 25 November. While IPCom has successfully negotiated license agreements with numerous international telecoms companies, HTC and Nokia still refuse to agree with IPCom.
