Post 27 A preliminary injunction against HTC One in Netherlands by Nokia due to dual-membrane microphones chip

I would like to share this news although there's nothing related to the assignment for this week regarding to useless patents. In fact, the case I am going to discuss doesn't directly related to patent. But it shows injunction can be issued with reasons other than patent infringement.

A week ago, the Amsterdam district court in Netherlands has granted Nokia’s request to block sales of the latest HTC One in the Netherlands market due to the dual-membrane microphones used in HTC’s flagship phone. According to the source, ST Microelectronics was contracted to invent and manufacture the microphone technology and chip exclusively for Nokia. The contract gives Nokia 12 months exclusivity on the microphone chips, but there was a misunderstanding over when the exclusivity deal was set to begin. Since the Lumia 720 was the first Nokia phone to use the chip, the courts have ruled that Nokia has exclusive rights to the technology until February of 2014. While the HTC One uses same microphone chip used by the Nokia Lumia 720, it is believed that ST Microelectronics should be the party to blame to sell products to both Nokia and HTC. Based on this HTC could not do anything but to give up the whole Netherlands market:

“HTC is disappointed in the decision. We are considering whether it will have any impact on our business and we will explore alternative solutions immediately.” -HTC

I am more interested about the fact that Nokia does not own any patents regarding the microphone chips it uses in their Lumia 720, but yet able to pull an injunction on HTC One. The non-disclosure agreement (NDA) between Nokia and ST Microelectronic has given Nokia the power to prevent any 3rd party using that chip. In that sense, the concept was very similar to obtaining a temporary less powerful version of patent (12 month period of exclusivity with legal power to put injunction on products using relevant technology). Obviously now you don't have to be the inventor(s) to own this exclusivity, and this method is a lot cheaper than obtaining the patent of the chip itself. I am really amazed by this kind of agreement, in which I think would be an attractive alternative to tech companies that refused to spend too much on patents.

Same microphone chip is used in Nokia Lumia 720 and HTC One