Week 7, Post 2 — Android likely infringes Nokia patent

Android's famous tethering feature, which enables users to use mobile phones to act as network routers in order to share their internet connections with portable computers, likely infringes on a Nokia patent.

At the ITC, Nokia just defeated Google and HTC with respect to a  proper interpretation of US 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."

This defeat's consequences are far reaching. It now appears very difficult for Google and HTC to deny infringement at the trial, which is in two months, and if they can't prove this patent invalid based on prior art, which would need to be older than June 1995, then a US ban against HTC's android is reasonably likely.

This feature is an android feature that dozens of device makers, including HTC and Samsung, provide to their customers. However, Nokia came up with this well over a decade before Google presented this feature. Here's a picture from the patent document: