Post 16 Andriod's Internet Tethering may infringe Nokia patent

According to Foss Patent Blog, Android's popular tethering feature, which enables mobile phones to act as network routers in order to share their Internet connections with portable computers, appears likely to infringe on a key Nokia patent.

At the United States International Trade Commission (USITC), Nokia has just defeated Google and HTC with respect to the proper legal interpretation of U.S. Patent No 5,884,190 on a "method for making a data transmission connection from a computer to a mobile communication network for transmission of analog and/or digital signals". Note that this patent was file on June 7, 1996, which is almost a decade before Google implements this function to its smartphone platform Android.

After ITC's victory, Nokia will sure extend this patent infringement case to the courts around the world where they can do financial damages to HTC. Again, the claim of this patent is pretty board, and thus make it very lethal even through I question the patent inventor(s) had though about the application on smartphones in 1996:


"Method for making a data transmission connection from a computer to any one of a plurality of mobile communication networks for transmission of analog and/or digital signals, wherein the computer is connected with one of the mobile communication networks via a telecommunication terminal which is in local data transmission connection with the computer; and wherein the data transmission connection utilizes at least a first operation mode for connection with a first of said telecommunication networks and a second operation mode for connection with a second of said telecommunication networks, the method comprising steps of:

• testing said communication networks to determine which of said plurality of mobile communication networks are available for a connection to be made via the telecommunication terminal;

• selecting one of the available mobile communication networks;

• at the telecommunication terminal, setting an operation mode corresponding to the selected one of the mobile communication networks; and

• setting the data transmission connection for transmission via the selected operation mode."

HTC (and Google) tried to narrow the meaning of two passages of the claim language, the judge rejected all the arguments made to defend the patent infringement. If the judge eventually favors Nokia, HTC and Google may need to ask the ITC Commission to overrule the judge if they wanted to avoid an import ban. But that means there are chances that HTC smartphones may face an import ban of all its android smartphones (internet tethering is a default function of android system). This may also means other Android phones made by Samsung, Motorola and LG may face the ban since this Nokia patent applies to all Android phones.