Katie MarsalAccording to Nokia, the patents involved in the suit, filed in the Federal District Court in the Western District of Wisconsin, are related to enhanced speech and data transmission. The technology uses positioning data in applications and new antenna configurations to improve performance and save space within the hardware, allowing for smaller devices.
"Nokia has been the leading developer of many key technologies in mobile devices" said Paul Melin, General Manager, Patent Licensing at Nokia. "We have taken this step to protect the results of our pioneering development and to put an end to continued unlawful use of Nokia's innovation."
Nokia noted that it has invested about 40 billion euros in research and development in the last two decades. It said it has one of the industry's "strongest and broadest" patent portfolios, with more than 11,000 patent families.
Friday's announcement is the fourth complaint Nokia has lodged against Apple dating back to late 2009. Nokia first sued Apple last October, accusing the iPhone maker of infringing on patented wireless standards related to GSM and wireless LAN. Then in December, it filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission, claiming that Apple has been infringing on patents with the iPhone, its line of iPads, and MacBooks.
In January, a third lawsuit alleged that Apple infringed on several "implementation patents." Filed in a federal court in Delaware, it addressed the same products cited in the ITC suit.
For its part, Apple In January, Nokia's ITC complaint was accepted for investigation, considered a formality with such a high-profile case. The ITC also agreed to investigate Apple over Nokia's claims.
Analyst Gene Munster with Piper Jaffray has said he believes Nokia seeks a 1 percent to 2 percent royalty on every iPhone sold. That would amount to about $6 to $12 per handset in compensation for intellectual properties related go GSM, 3G and Wi-Fi.
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68 Comments
So the CEO, under extreme pressure from shareholders to step down, gets a vote of confidence by the BOD and this is a part of his plan to bring Nokia back to prominence? I understand that these types of lawsuits are but one aspect of a strategy and that anything that can potentially slow Apple down is good for Nokia, but this seems to be indicative of the rather sad state of affairs in their leadership. If you can't beat'em on the playground, tell the teacher that they're cheating and hope the teacher helps you in some way.
If I were a Nokia shareholder, I'd be selling right about now.
If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em.
This story just about explains the utter inability of this once-great company to compete against Apple: http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...-update2-.html
It's no wonder they have to resort to such tactics.
nice to have some double standards here. Hey, Apple how is that lawsuit towards HTC doing ?
Apple isn't licensing that tech from Nokia even though everybody else in the industry is. These aren't software patents but patents on real physical technology.
On the other hand, Nokia has refused to license the tech to apple on the same reasonable, non-discriminatory terms as everybody else. They want access to some of Apple's valuable patents, one that Apple really doesn't want to license.
This is the issue. Hopefully the courts and the ITC will be smart enough to figure it out.