A year after filing suit against two handset manufacturers for copyright infringement, Nokia China is still waiting for its case to be heard.

The company filed a complaint against Telsda Mobile Communication Co. Ltd and Song Xun Da Zhong Ke Electronic Co. Ltd on June 12 last year.

The suit was accepted by the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court but so far the court has not yet set a date on a hearing.

The Finnish firm is alleging that Telsda’s A317 handset used the distinctive form factor and keypad design of Nokia’s 7620 device. An official close to the case said Telsda had claimed it was “inspired” by the Nokia design.

The A317 has since been withdrawn from the market and all references to the product have been removed from the company website.

Telsda is a privately-held firm based in Shenzhen, established in 1998. In 2005 it was nominated by the Shenzhen People’s Government as a “triple-A export enterprise” and as one of the “100 Strong Enterprises.”

The official said the litigation places MII in a difficult position because of the conflict between its dual roles in developing the local industry and ensuring protection of all ICT intellectual property rights.

MII vice-minister Lou Qinjian, the ministry’s point-man on IPR, said recently that intellectual property was being used by multinational companies as “one of many competitive strengths” to compete against Chinese companies.

 “One side looking to maximize its IPR benefit brings a certain negative impact into normal market competition and technology innovation,” Lou said in an interview published on the MII website on “World IPR Day”, April 26.

Lou said that because of both domestic and international factors, China’s ICT IPR development environment was “very grim”.

He said China needed a strong IPR protection regime “to support the IPR innovation and productization” of Chinese technology.

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