HTC One Mini faces UK ban after ruling

HTC Corp said Wednesday that it will appeal to a court ruling in the UK which may stop it selling its One Mini smartphone in UK from Friday.

A British court ruled the Taiwan company had infringed patents owned by Finnish rival Nokia.

Justice Richard Arnold of the England and Wales High Court Tuesday granted Nokia a final injunction to stop HTC from continuing to infringe upon a European patent held by Nokia related to mobile phone microchips.

The judge had ruled in October that HTC's One phone contained the microchips. HTC, responding to the lawsuit, said Wednesday it would appeal the ruling.

"We have filed urgent application to appeal. In the meantime, we are working with our chip suppliers to explore alternative solutions," it said in a statement.

Analysts said the ban would have a limited impact on HTC's sales as the One Mini is not its flagship model. Europe accounts for around 20 percent of the company's overall sales, they said.

The British judge had allowed HTC a partial stay on the ruling, so that it can continue selling its flagship One model pending an appeal, because a ban would cause "considerable damage" to HTC's UK business.

But for the smaller One Mini, the judge said the balance came down in favor of refusing a stay because HTC had designed and launched it when it knew it was facing a claim for infringement of the patent.

Nokia in a statement said "pending the appeal, HTC has undertaken not to ship any more of the infringing products into the UK, except the HTC One, which it may continue to sell until the conclusion of any appeal."

"If HTC does not succeed on appeal, the injunction will take effect on all infringing products. Nokia is also claiming financial compensation for the infringement of this patent."

HTC started selling the One series in March. The handsets are priced at around 3,000 yuan ($492.3) each.