Taiwan-based Android handset maker HTC said in a Friday statement that the District Court of Mannheim in Germany had dismissed two patent-infringement lawsuits which Finnish firm Nokia had filed against it.

In its filing of the two lawsuits in May last year, Nokia had claimed that HTC had infringed two of the company's patents - European Patent Numbers 0812120 (the '120 patent) and 1312974 (the '974 patent) - which pertain to smartphone technology.

The Mannheim court said in its ruling that HTC had not violated the Nokia-owned patent EP0812120, which supposedly is Nokia's "flagship" patent that covers app store functionality found in Google Play.

Moreover, the court - asking Nokia to pay HTC's legal costs - also said in a separate ruling that HTC had not infringed Nokia's patent EP1312974, which covers a mechanism for adjusting the brightness of a handset's screen in daylight and darkness.

Reacting to the Mannheim court's ruling, HTC said that while the company respects the intellectual property rights of other firms, Nokia had overstated the scope of the '120 patent, apparently in the hope of extracting licensing fees from HTC.

HTC also said that it believes that "the '120 patent is invalid, and (HTC) will continue with invalidity actions pending before the English Patents Court and German Federal Patents Court; and added: "We fully expect the patent to be revoked before any Nokia appeal proceedings take place."