No Lumia 900 on T-Mobile in Germany, related to WP8 upgrade path?

An unlocked version of the Lumia 900 launched in Germany last week but when the phone was notably absent on T-Mobile, customers became suspicious. When the question was presented on a T-Mobile support forum, a customer service representative reportedly checked around the office and learned they wouldn’t be carrying the phone because the operating system wouldn’t be upgradable to Windows Phone 8 when it launches in a few months.

A T-Mobile spokesperson from the region has since issued statements to various media claiming the forum response isn’t an official statement from Deutsche Telekom and they have no idea where said information came from. The spokesperson concludes that such a statement would never be communicated and noted the phone was not being offered due to market conditions and customer needs.

This only added fuel to the rumors that current Windows Phone device would not be compatible with Windows Phone 8. Following Microsoft’s sneak peak at Windows Phone event earlier today, we now have confirmation that Windows Phone 7.5 devices will not be able to run Windows Phone 8. Instead, legacy device owners will receive new features through Windows Phone 7.8. Details are still scarce at this point but we suspect 7.8 would be pushed out to handsets around the same time as WP8 devices launch.

The Microsoft upgrade path announcement certainly lends some credit to the Lumia 900 / T-Mobile fiasco but we don’t expect the telecommunications company to actually admit it.

Google gains legal right to use Gmail brand in Germany

Google happily announced on its blog todaythat @googlemail.com will now become @gmail.com in Germany. This marks the first time in several years that @gmail.com will be the default option for German users. Google had switched to @googlemail.com following a trademark dispute with businessman Daniel Girsch. Girsch was the owner of a German "electronic postal delivery" service named "G-mail", a company name which was short for "Girsch mail".

In 2005, when Google rolled out its Gmail service across Europe, both the United Kingdom and Germany quickly disputed its use based on trademark infringements. Faced with the proposition of having to pull Gmail from those countries, Google decided to re-label its service from Gmail to "Google Mail"  and offered U.K. and German citizens @googlemail.com addresses instead.

Eventually, Google settled with U.K. opposition but in 2007, Germans cemented their decision, preventing the company from operating in the country under its Gmail label.

Although the nature of the settlement is unknown, Google now appears to own both gmail.de and the German G-mail trademark, making it legal for the company to offer @gmail.com by default.

Existing users with @googlemail.com addresses will be able to transition to @gmail.com if they so desire. For users who do convert, their @googlemail.com email address will continue to remain active as an alias. This means if someone sends that user an email to their old @googlemail.com address, it will still arrive in their @gmail.com inbox. Additionally, users can even change back to @googlemail.com if they wish.

HTC faces ban in Germany over alleged patent infringement

HTC could suffer a very ill timed sales ban in Germany, after it withdrew its appeal to a patent claim over 3G/UMTS standards won by German firm IPCom in February 2009 in a Mannheim court. HTC said the appeal was redundant as a German court has already questioned the validity of the aforementioned patent, but IPCom sees this as an admission of defeat and intends to enforce an injunction in the shortest possible time.

"Since HTC has never to come up with an offer that adequately reflects the value of these patents, IPCom has been left with no choice -- we will use the right awarded by the courts, likely resulting in HTC devices disappearing from shops during the crucial Christmas season," IPCom managing director Bernhard Frohwitter said in a statement.

A verdict on HTC's appeal was due to be decided this week.

Although the Taiwanese handset maker claims IPCom's patents are invalid, patent expert and blogger Florian Mueller points out that if that were the motivation behind the withdrawal then it should have happened earlier. Instead, he claims, HTC is buying time to avoid a decision on two related patents that IPCom dropped into the suit after the original judgment had come out. These additional patents would have been at issue at this week's trial, but now IPCom will have to go back to a first-instance court if it wants to enforce them.

IPCom can still enforce the original patent, however, which is valid until 2020. According to Mueller, chances are not looking good for HTC and it may have to pay up soon if it doesn't want to leave the German market.

IPCom acquired Bosch's mobile telephony patent portfolio in 2007. It develops no products and carries out no research into mobile technologies, but it is determined to get a good return on the money it paid for the patents and legal fees. Besides HTC, the patent holding firm is targeting Nokia in the UK and elsewhere, as well as Germany's two leading carriers T-Mobile and Vodafone.