Acacia Research Group LLC has been granted an injunction request by a German court on November 27 that could potentially ban HTC from selling its handsets through Deutsche Telecom in the country. The injunction is expected to take effect from later this month.

Acacia Research had initially filed a suit against Deutsche Telecom last year over ‘standard-essential’ patents related to voice coding. Standard essential patents comprise of patented technology that is used by almost all OEMs in their smartphones and other devices. Acacia says that it has agreements with Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Amazon, and other major smartphone makers to use the patents, but not with HTC.

HTC says that it is disappointed by the ruling and plans on filing an appeal immediately. The company did not mention whether it is in talks with Acacia Research on licensing deals or not. It is also working with Deutsche Telecom to make sure that its potential customers are not affected by this ruling. Until the ban is imposed, HTC can continue to sell its handsets through Deutsche Telecom in Germany.

It is unclear how big of a market Germany is for the market, but with the company going through troubling times, every market counts. 2015 has been particularly a bad year for HTC, with its flagship handset — the One M9 — turning out to be a huge dud. The company tried to recapture the market by launching different variants of the One M9, but that did not particularly help matters.