7:30 PM – In an ongoing legal battle in the UK between HTC and Nokia, Tuesday’s ruling threatened to take HTC One off the market. In the ruling passed down by Judge Richard Arnold, he may have released HTC One’s successor’s release date.
In a new report from BBC (via Bailii), Judge Arnold write in his decision that “HTC is close to launching the successor flagship model to the HTC One. HTC has not revealed the launch date.” Continuing in his statement, he says that “Nokia has adduced evidence which suggests that the launch date is in the first quarter of 2014 and possibly as early as February 2014. HTC has not contradicted this.”
The presiding Judge continues on to say that HTC may unveil the successor to the One smartphone next year in February or March. HTC’s upcoming phone was mentioned in the ruling is because the company is worried that if the HTC One is taken off the market before the company can launch its new phone, there will be massive loss of business and damage to HTC.
HTC is doing the best it can to prove that the next smartphone to be release early next year will not infringe upon Nokia’s patents. It’s quite hard to do and at the same time not reveal too much about the phone.
