HTC One Successor (aka M8) Almost Certain to Debut in Feb 2014: Report

A UK high court while pronouncing the verdict on the patent dispute between HTC and Nokia has apparently revealed that the Taiwanese company's next generation flagship phone (rumoured as M8) may make its debut in the first quarter of 2014.

In the paragraph 45 of the ruling, it said "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. HTC's evidence is that the new phone will not contain any chips which have been found to infringe the Patent."

"HTC's witness Brad Lin claims in paragraph 11 of his first witness statement that 'The features of the chips selected by HTC [for the new phone] are unknown to HTC, and hence I do not know if they infringe EP 024.' As expressed, the first part of this sentence is simply incredible. I shall assume that what Mr Lin means is that HTC does not know if the chips have the features of claim 1 of the Patent. The significance of that assertion, even assuming it is correct, depends on what efforts HTC has made to find this out, which neither Mr Lin nor any other witness reveals."

The above mentioned quote clearly points out that the HTC One successor (aka M8) is just a few months away from its debut. It is to be noted that HTC One will be completing its one year cycle on 19 February 2014, leading many to believe it may either get launched in the international telecommunication fair MWC (Mobile World Congress) 2014, February (24-27) or the company may host a private event to unveil its new flagship smartphone.

Just a couple of weeks ago, HTC M8 key specifications were reportedly leaked via a benchmarking site. It is said to sport a 5.0-inch full HD (1920x1080p) display and run on the latest Android OS v4.4 KitKat powered by a 2.26GHz Snapdragon 800 series quad-core CPU paired with  Adreno 330 graphics engine,  2GB RAM, 16GB inbuilt storage and house a 4.0-megapixel main camera (probably 2.1 UltraPixel module) and 2.1-megapixel front camera.

Coming back to Nokia vs. HTC patent dispute, the court has favoured the Finnish company's contention and the judge has ordered to ban the sales of the HTC One Mini in UK starting 6 December. The woe does not end there, as Nokia is also gunning for the Taiwanese company's current flagship model HTC One.

But the timing of HTC One's successor launch has apparently influenced the judge's decision that the 'One' should not be banned from sale at this time, reported BBC.

[To view to full judgment script, Click Here]

The bitter patent war between Nokia and HTC reportedly began in October when the Finnish company filed an injunction in the UK against HTC phones infringing on the patent technology 'Modulator', an internal hardware piece used in phones to transfer data.