Submitted by Just when you thought the legal battle between Nokia and Apple couldn’t get any more convoluted, Apple has filed its own complaint with the US International Trade Commission, seeking to have Nokia’s products banned from the US market because they infringe on Apple’s patents.
So, to get this all in order: Nokia sued Apple for patent infringement back in October, which was followed by a counter-suit from Apple in December. Nokia followed up by filing a complaint with the International Trade Commission regarding a different set of patents, while also adding 14 more patents to the original lawsuit.
And now Apple has retaliated by filing its own complaint with the ITC, in which it wants to invoke section 337 of the US Tariff Act of 1930. Under section 337, the ITC can actually ban Nokia products from entering the US market if they are found to infringe upon Apple’s patents.
“Nokia will study the complaint when it is received and continue to defend itself vigorously,” Nokia spokesman Mark Durrant told Bloombeg, “However this does not alter the fact that Apple has failed to agree appropriate terms for using Nokia technology and has been seeking a free ride on Nokia’s innovation since it shipped the first iPhone in 2007.”
This is getting uglier by the week, it seems.
I know this will sound very rude – but honestly, this was bound to happen. Apple went into Nokia’s turf, Nokia felt threatened => trial against Apple. Now Apple fights back. However I’m pretty sure Nokia has hard hitting patents in there, they’ve been doing this for more time than Apple
Since Apple aren’t the nicest guys around, I kind of feel glad this happened to them, maybe they’ll learn some manners
I wonder which company will pay more in the end.
Edited 2010-01-17 23:54 UTC
So your not liking Apple justifies Nokia being a patent troll?
Nokia is no patent troll. Nokia has working implementations of its patents.
A patent troll is company (or individual) that owns (a lot of) patents but nothing else, and are using the patents to sue other companies (and individuals) as soon as these patents are implemented widely (or by a major corporation).
Just like Apple. (Couldn’t resist)
How is Nokia being a patent troll?
Here’s the funny thing about the Apple/Nokia thing:
It’s an uneven playing field, and it’s Nokia’s fault in both their assessment and their demands. Let me guess: this will make me sound like an Apple fanboy. Well, no, Steve Jobs and Apple do NOT walk on water, but Nokia is at fault in this, which very few articles fail to mention as to why Nokia has a problem with their thinking.
Does Nokia own a lot of valid patents related to cell phone stuff? Yes.
Does Apple need them and need to pay for their use? Yes.
(Here’s the kicker) Is Nokia licensing them to Apple at the same reasonable and fair terms, as set out by what they’ve agreed to do in the past for patents that are used in the standard infrastructure? Aye, that’s the rub: Nokia wants to make Apple pay more, because they’re Apple, and not give them the same terms. This is the same sort of thing that happened (IIRC) with RamBus, or at least similar, in terms of licensing. Apple, sure, they’re using some things that likely clearly run afoul of what Nokia is complaining about, but Nokia has refused to extend the same terms to Apple as they have to others, so Apple has done what makes sense to their shareholders and bottom line and just plain getting things done:
They’ve gone ahead and used such IP (or things that infringe on it) and waited for a court settlement, where they’re figuring they’re not likely to get nailed for an unfair amount of costs, compared to what they would have gotten if Nokia had had their way.
Now, here’s the interesting thing: I honestly don’t know how much Nokia would get for the licensing per item, it’s probably not a huge amount, or else it wouldn’t be so affordable for the tech made by other companies, which tend to have more lower-end cost products in the cell phone realm than Apple: Apple thus far seems uninterested in the low profit-margin devices, and, frankly, evidence shows they’re using the most profitable strategy, as opposed to (currently) competing with the lowest common denominator pure commodity hardware. Now, the terms of what Nokia wants appears to be some combination of higher licensing fees from Apple than others are paying, along with the objective of getting cross-licensing of various patents Apple has, as Nokia currently has nothing that compares to Apple’s phones in many ways: Nokia sells a hell of a lot of phones, but lots of the models are the very low-end, low-margin ones, and they’ll not be able to compete as readily if they have to do something meaningfully different to compare to an iPhone, at least without licensing certain things from Apple. The thing is, precisely because Apple is so late in the game, while Nokia has lots of cell phone-related infrastructure patents that they must make available to all comers at a fair and equal licensing fee, Apple has several patents for other things that Nokia wants, but in no manner are the Apple patents things that are infrastructure requirements to implement phones, and therefore make a hill of beans of difference that they aren’t international or industry standards, and they aren’t, so Apple has exactly zero legal or moral or business reasons that would incline them to doing a cross-licensing deal with Nokia, or any other competitor. Thus, when all the dust settles, it seems most probable that at most, Apple will get charged a relative slap on the wrist for whatever things they’re judged to have used that aren’t the infrastructure/standards-related patents, and Nokia likely will get nailed for not offering fair terms, and some settlement will occur, and many lawyers will get richer, as we know the attorneys ALWAYS win (assuming they’re competent!) no matter what the overall settlement is between the 2+ parties that are always involved in suits.
Strictly speaking, what Apple has done is purchase Nokia-licensed technology from a third-party (who is licensed by Nokia to do so). Nokia feels that doing so gives Apple an unreasonable edge in their products by not dealing with Nokia directly (who wants to charge more, and restrict Apple’s use of the tech).
It’s like a Google buying disk arrays from EMC, and Seagate finding that the arrays have Seagate disks in them, then telling Google that they are “too big” to buy licensed product from EMC and asking them to negotiate directly at higher cost and with some stipulation about how the storage is used. Google would call their bluff too.
The terms of GSM tech licensing are clear here, they don’t carry on from the supplier of radio module to manufacturer of handset.
Wrong, as shown by this completely objective comparison between the iPhone and the Nokia E70:
http://tinyurl.com/yvd4ct
not to mention the N900
Hardware is just part of the equation: Apple’s phones have a complete ecosystem of the AppStore and software that’s easy to find, that’s not written for the lowest common denominator, like most cell phone software, and is also cheaper by comparison for what it does. Even if the hardware is comparable in native functions and the software is better in some feature checkmark manner, it doesn’t mean it’s comparable, or not: once you have it, what can you do with it in addition to the standard functionality? Or, in other words: what are you really wanting to do with your hardware once you’ve got it, and what do you want to use it for besides strictly a phone? And what sort of support do you get from the company? And therein lies the major distinction with Apple’s fairly unified (at least for now) platform that also encompasses the iPod Touch: a commonality of hardware and software capacity, combined with a larger ecosystem, that means people have a large enough other customers to allow software to be cheaply available, that uses the hardware to full advantage, and also has a rather long-term software update support system already in place and well-tested with a history: that’s not been the common thread of previous cell phones, or smart phones, of having the same general OS being freely updated and having functionality added over time. So, to recap: hardware at time of release is just one factor in the equation, as is the software at release: the hardware may not change for that model, but is there enough of that particular hardware model to have a full, long-lasting unfragmented ecosystem to make it better over time, or, like so many other cell phones, does it end up being like most things before it, where people throw them away after 6 months for the new hotness, because there’s no long-lasting added value derived after that point, because it’s no longer supported much (if at all) by the seller/maker, and software is just so-so, and expensive?
The N900/new Maemo platform now has Ovi as their app store, though I haven’t used it myself. If your concern is just “software”, however, I’d like to see the iPhone run OpenOffice, GIMP, and Firefox the way that an N900 can 😉
That’s the thing, noone wants to run stupid non-phone related desktop apps on ones phone. One want to run phone-centric apps.
Having debian on the phone don’t make it the best phone .. Not even the best debian workstation, so who gives a shit?
And I’d like to see the N900 fit in my pocket without tearing it off my shirt, like an iPhone can…
😛
Wow, that “review” (and I use that word in the loosest possible way) was written by someone with a very mature objectivity…
Oh, and why is it that Nokia want access to Apple’s patents (reportedly, but unverified)? Might it have something to do with the fact that although they own all these you beaut patents and have an R&D team twice the size of the whole of Apple the iPhone is slapping them silly in the smartphone market? And the only way they have of stopping the bleeding is to sue Apple’s pants off rather then create and properly market something that’s actually a real competitor rather than put most of their time and effort into their 2 bit POS models that continue to flood the market.
You are misinformed. Apple has less than 20% of “smarthpone” (whatever that means – why SE “feature phones” are excluded?) market, while Nokia has 50% of it. When looking at whole market of mobile phones it’s less than 3% for Apple and 39% for Nokia.
It might be true that Apple _wants_ to be a major player. In which case Nokia might be simply reminding them to play by the rules.
Funny, I wasn’t aware that there are different types of objectivity.
But you may want to take your humor detector into the shop. It no workee.
Those reportedly, unverified bastards!!!
Someone give him a tissue to wipe the froth & spittle off his screen.
Well, they don’t have to license them. That doesn’t justify stealing them.
I hope Apple sucks lemons.
Apple was at the table empty handed and asked to have the same conditions as the established players.
The main issues boils down to:
– (conflict)relative value of Nokia’s patents against Apple’s patents
– (suit)the amount that has to be compensated for usage of those patents
That depends, if the patents was a part of the GSM and related standard. They have a “big” load of patents that are not, in fact, part of the standards.
Please do read the first suit Nokia filed. It is all about setting the price for the patents. So Nokia might get “dry out of the water” on this one.
Do you have documentation for that Nokia asked Apple for more than usual?
This is not what I have read from following the story. Apple thought the usual fees were unfair, but it was AFAIKT the usual fees they objected to, not some extra ones.
Any link showing that Nokia is asking for more from Apple than they do from other companies, regarding their patents?
Everything I’ve read about this affair has shown that Nokia have simply been trying to license their patents to Apple the same as they’ve done with everyone else, and have tried to do so behind the scenes for over two years now, and Apple have steadfastly refused to license those patents, even though they are proven to be valid.
I’m not saying you’re wrong. But I’d like proof, because that changes the situation a bit. Nokia should ask for the same licensing fees from Apple as they do everyone else.
That’s a red herring. There’s no law which requires Nokia to grant equivalent terms to all companies when licensing its patents; in fact, they have more incentive to demand more from Apple, because Apple is making a ton of money from the iPhone.
First, Nokia has every right to demand different amounts from different customers who license their patents. This is not unusual. A patent is a short-term monopoly granted by the government to some entity in exchange for a longterm grant to the public domain.
Second, it’s not as simple as you think. In some cases, the patents are licensed by a collection of affiliated companies (Nokia et al). This is simply a result of licensing and cross-licensing between companies, and it’s a tangled web — but it’s a web that will need to get paid.
Third, Apple has shown a propensity to abuse other peoples’ IP — using Cisco’s iPhone mark even though they were aware of its existence, sued over screen technology in iPhone, infringing camera patents, etc — no different than most other tech companies. In most cases, Apple has been able to secure favorable licensing terms, but it has walked into a hornet’s nest with the mobile phone-related technology.
Nokia probably can (and should) demand a per-unit royalty on each and every iPhone sold. This should be amusing to see how it unfolds.
For all GSM standard-related patents that are required to interoperate on the phone network, Nokia MUST extend the same rates, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory to Apple, or anyone else, as a result of being in such a monopoly position for those patents: this is the crux of the matter. Nokia had to enter an agreement at the time they were made part of the standard to do so, but (there are articles on roughlydrafted.com, admittedly a site run by an extremist) it seems Nokia has this weird belief that they have the right to cherry-pick what patents they want to use of Apple’s, and not just monetary payments, or at least that’s my current, possibly wrong, and likely incomplete understanding of the whole case. In such a case, Apple has no reason on earth that they should have to cross-license any non-standards-related patents (for example, Apple has to extend fair licensing terms to everyone for their DisplayPort stuff) to their competitors.
All of Nokia’s patents are not the issue: it’s all about Nokia demanding things from Apple in exchange that aren’t fair. After all, not all patents are created equal, and in this situation, Nokia is definitely the monopolist for the critical IP: Apple’s would be very nice for them to have, but Nokia’s problem is that because Apple IS such a late-comer, they have no cell phone-related patents that need to be used by everyone else just to make a cell phone work. Besides, if Apple pays the fair rate for their patent use to Nokia (which Apple is prone to do, once there’s a settlement that’s fair, or the suit goes through and is judged accordingly, with the presumption, of course, Apple was only not agreeing to an unfair licensing cost) then Nokia still wins by Apple’s success, albeit not nearly as much as Nokia may stand to win competitively otherwise.
Actually, no. They don’t have to offer the same rates. And nobody knows what the rates are (although if it actually goes to court, that may be revealed). If anything, they need to offer similar terms. And THAT is the crux.
Nokia can go to a company like Ericsson or Motorola, and say that they need to pay $10 per handset as a royalty fee. Ericsson or Motorola can turn around and say, no problem, but we also hold patents you need, and even though you hold the largest number of patents, you still need some of ours. So Nokia says, ok, whatever, let’s cross-license and at the end of they day, we’ll call it $2 per handset you owe.
Then Apple comes along and says they should only have to pay $2 because that’s what the other guys are paying.
The fact that Nokia is taking this to court, which will allow discovery to happen and likely shed some light on the licensing agreements they have in place with other manufacturers, means that they’re probably feeling pretty confident about their position.
Apple probably thinks they’re calling Nokia’s bluff, but Nokia isn’t bluffing. Heck, they just came out on the winning end of a lawsuit in the EU that could have seen them on the hook for $18B, because they took the patent battle to the end (the suing company wound up having a couple of the key patents ruled invalid), rather than caving and settling. They simply don’t back down on IP related matters, whereas Apple’s IP legal history amounts to settling and/or losing.
RAND means little if it isn’t actually defined in legally valid terms, which in the case of the GSM et al. patents, it isn’t.
Fair? Nokia, among others, spends billions of dollars developing the technology that drives modern mobile networks. No matter how you cut it, the iPhone as it is exists only because of the investment that companies like Nokia et al. poured into the tehcnology that drives it.
And monopolist? How so? Does Nokia hold the bulk of the patents for GSM? No. Depending on the specific standard, they may own the single largest amount of patents, but they certainly don’t hold enough to be called a monopolist.
Apple develops an innovative GUI, puts themselves on a pedestal, and dismisses the investment in the actual engineering that powers their phone. That’s like Microsoft dismissing Intel’s relevance in the technology space, and claiming that Windows innovation is what really drives personal computing. It’s right, and it’s wrong.
At any rate, Apple is in the same boat that RIM is in. They’re both major players in the mobile market, but they lack the core patents to put them at parity with the companies that control the technology. Unless Apple is going to make a multi-billion dollar investment in R&D to develop some new ground-breaking wireless tech that will gain some sort of massive provider buy-in, they’re going to have to settle for paying-to-play.
Fairness has nothing to do with it, they should have done better due diligence before entering the market in the first place.
Totally agree. People like to slam Nokia for not innovating. That is so wrong. Apple couldn’t have gotten where it is today without leveraging technology that Nokia and its partners developed. The basic problem here is that Apple seems to think that they didn’t have to negotiate with the patent holders; that they could roll the dice on the IP, and see what happens later on. Well, they’ve got a lot of balls to go up against Nokia, given the sheer number of core mobile patents that Nokia holds. What I would like to see happen is for Apple to pay a substantial per-unit royalty on every iPhone sold. The cash infusion into Nokia will not only bring Apple down to Earth, but it will level the playing field, and result in greater competition.
Agreed. Anybody who thinks that what Apple did was righteous should step back and consider the same question — except substitute Microsoft for the party running roughshod over a patent-holder. If it’s wrong for Microsoft to do it, Apple doesn’t get a free ride, either. For those of you who don’t believe in patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc, it’s funny how some of you scream like stuck pigs when somebody questions the GPL. Like one form of IP is somehow better than another. Hypocrites.
Edited 2010-01-19 08:24 UTC
In other words, you’re saying that late-comers should get beneficial treatment; unreasonable and discriminatory towards those who built the market.
But you are simply repeating what Apple says when it comes to “reasonable and non discriminatory” claims. While forgetting that not only those terms apply, apparently, just to members of GSM association (and Apple doesn’t seem to want to be a member of it?), but also that Nokia certainly cross-licenses stuff with entities that need Nokia patents (and “3x more expensive for us” is, again, Apple talking).
If anything, it might be exactly that Apple demands unreasonable and discriminatory terms – demanding better treatment the any other player in the industry.
All this ignores that Apple kept iPhone secret for a long time; choose to release an infringing product without the time to clear licensing of GSM technology.
It would be interesting to have Apple banned in Europe and Nokia banned in USA.
Maybe they should ban both and make them
work it out. If they can’t work it out. Ban
Apple and Nokia … It shouldn’t be to hard
to call AT&T and tell them to close all the
iphone accounts.
In the long run, Apple would be hurt more if
the iphone got ban .. millions of users would
sue Apple in a heart beat ….
Now How Do I Turn IQ points to groklaw points?
Well, they can afford it. Not that it makes business sense or that it would fly past anti-trust rules (well, unless they just take the patents and spin of Nokia as it was before, but as a perpetual no-cost licensee of their portfolio).
Having looked at the original Nokia complaint, I think that they had some cojones. I haven’t seen the original list of patents, but the original handful cited were REALLY grasping at straws — and Apple’s countersuit was pretty strong. I hope Nokia has found something more substantial in this later batch.
I really don’t see Apple ever being able to afford a hostile takeover of Nokia. More likely the other way around. In 2008, Nokia was 88th in the global Fortune 500 ranking and Apple wasn’t even in the top 100. Unless the financial landscape has dramatically changed for both companies over the last year, and I doubt that very much, Nokia could probably swallow Apple whole.
Edit: I just looked up the figures for 2009. Nokia at 85, up from 88 and Apple at 253, up from 337. Although Apple have made a huge jump since the year before, they are still no where near Nokia.
Edited 2010-01-18 03:04 UTC
Not technically possible:
– Nokia split off their networks division
– Apple’s shares are valued highly in the market, so Nokia wouldn’t be able to get enough $$$
Yes, its not technically possible, for neither one to take over the other.
And companies seldom gain anything from mergers, they just speed some cash and extra work to integrate the company.
And the network division is not completely split off, they own 50 % and Siemens own 50 %.
But still, it’s a separate company. And that tends to devalue the parent company’s stock, unfortunately 🙂
Well, that’s an interesting take.
Nokia has patents related to the technology driving GSM phone networks.
Apple has software patents related to interface that may not even withstand scrutiny, and certainly wouldn’t hold up outside of the US.
The one with cojones is Apple, thinking they can side-step patent licensing that every other handset manufacturer has had to agree to.
When Nokia had this dance with Qualcomm, the battle dragged out for years with a cost of hundreds of millions, including Qualcomm being locked out of the US market; if memory serves, Verizon wound up having to pay a license fee directly to Nokia in order to secure phones for their network, since the bulk of CDMA phones relied on Qualcomm chipsets. I doubt Apple’s shareholders have the stomach for the kind of battle that this could lead to.
Apple’s only angle is to try and force some sort of court decision on exactly what would constitute RAND license terms, which is actually what Nokia was trying to accomplish in the Qualcomm case before it was settled and withdrawn. They’re not in a strong position though, given that they chose to willingly infringe the patents, and that the iPhone has been a very successful and profitable product.
This is a battle that should have been had before the phone was launched, at least they could have argued that Nokia was using their position to try and inhibit Apple’s entry into the market.
If it goes to court, Apple is going to have to wind up paying Nokia a fee for every iPhone sold, potentially tripled due to the intentional infringement. The only real question would be how large that fee would be.
This one is going to be settled with a cross-licensing agreement, once the dust dies down and the egos are kept in check. It would simply be bad business otherwise, because Apple has far more to lose in this battle than Nokia does. Just wait until Nokia decides to take this battle to the EU, where much of Apple’s own patent portfolio wouldn’t even be recognized as valid.
Apple could maybe barely afford it…assuming that RIGHT NOW (with current share prices) there would be anybody willing to sell controlling stake in Nokia to Apple.
In short: no, there is no way in hell Apple could afford to pull that one off. Especially since their worth is determined by marketing & PR machine (which would take massive hit at the prospect of such buyout) much, much more than what Nokia is worth at any given moment.
… you really didn’t think any other company would play the same game you do, did you? I have a Nokia 5800 phone and love it! Apple needs to get over itself, like right now.
Crazy country you have, Americans.
Apple does not produce hardware (chips,screens etc) but they buy them instead. These manufacturers already pay for the patents Nokia have. It looks to me that Nokia is trying to double charge here the patent tax. I really don’t think Nokia is the good guy here. Not like Apple would be the good guy but what is fair,is fair.
Unfortunately, you are wrong Budd . Some royalties and license fees are passed to the customers who buy the chip/hardware to make the phone.
Edited 2010-01-18 10:34 UTC
OK,but Apple are not members of the GSM assoc. so the RAND terms would not apply to them,correct?
http://www.gsmworld.com/membership/associate_members.htm
Edited 2010-01-18 10:45 UTC
Nope, it usually don’t work that way, the RAND terms usually applies to all licensees. That’s the ETSI IPR Policy (and I assume that Nokia belongs to ETSI) which out to be about the same as any of the other associations’.
This is fair. I also have to add that everything should be standrdized (no proprietary drivers) and pass the cost to consumers. A fair and open society.
I don’t know what patents are involved, and what is there license but i am shure that:
1) there are some software patents
2) there can be patents not covering chips but how they are conected and controled
3) there can be license that apply to the integrator
4) foxcon, the producer of the phone, does not have any license for these patents (some chip providers might have, but not all Nokia patents are coverd)
Also, I understood that Nokia does not ask for money, but a patent agreement: you are free to use my patents and I am free to use your patents
The deals in-place between chip makers and patentholders is written that the end customer of the chip pays the royalty fees, rather then the chip maker!
Would you please back this with a document/link etc. Basically, a contract between Apple and,say,Qualcomm.Apple not being part of the GSM association (at least this morning they weren’t) they are not bound to the RAND terms.
Thank you.
PS: is not like I don’t believe,but I didn’t see any official info. Media is saying Apple thinks it pays too much (which is BS since they must have access to the contract numbers) or that Nokia is seeking patent for patent (again,pure speculation).
A very select amount of people know such details. And those are not publicised.
When the GSM standard was established, the companies with technology deemed essential for implementing the standard agreed that those patents would be made available under RAND terms. You’re basically talking about Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola and Qualcomm holding the bulk.
The problem is that there is no clear definition for RAND. From the moment the first GSM network was lit up, the licensing situation has been a big steaming cup of ugly. All of the players played silly bugger at some point with their licensing requirements, and it was several years before the tech was made available to handset manufacturers that weren’t part of the intial standard (mostly the Asian manufacturers), and that probably only came around from pressure on behalf of the providers and government.
So the long and the short of it is that, while the patent holders agreed to RAND license terms, those terms were not laid out and are pretty much in the control of the patent holders. It’s not like other standards such as the media codecs, where there is pretty much a published price list for royalties that go into a pool and are distributed to the patent holders. GSM tech requires licensing directly with the patent holders.
Being a member of the GSM Association is not a pre-requisite for implementing the standard (RIM isn’t, either), but by the same token, the GSM Association will certainly not attempt to mediate or pressure Nokia on behalf of Apple.
Your right about Apple’s claims about paying too much, since they don’t have access to the license agreements with other manufacturers, those are all protected under pretty heavy NDAs, so is simply speculation on Apple’s part.
The way the game is played is that the manufacturers leverage their own patent portfolios for cross-licensing when negotiating prices. If a company like Motorola licenses from Nokia, they are paying considerably less than a manufacturer like HTC, since they are offering up and licensing their own patents that Nokia requires as part of the agreement. In some cases it could simply be a cross-licensing agreement with no royalties, or it could be reduced royalty fees based on the perceived value of each party’s patent pool.
One could argue that this is a bit unfair to the manufacturers that are not part of that core group of companies, since they would likely pay higher fees, but the counter to that is that they haven’t had to make the multi-billion dollar investments in developing the technology either.
Nokia is trying to establish an agreement that would include a license fee and cross-licensing of certain patents from Apple. Apple is balking at the fee, and doesn’t want to license their patents in return.
This is a double-edged sword for Apple, because not only are they facing a very large battle with Nokia, but they could find themselves in a similar position with the other technology holders for licensing future devices. Apple does not have the R&D capabilities to play alongside this little cartel, and is always going to be reliant on patent licensing as long as they want to play in the communications game. By refusing to use their own patents in negotiating, as all the other manufacturers do, they may find themselves walled out.
Nokia’s R&D team is 39850 people (out of total 130000). That’s twice the size of Apple (20000 people, including contractors). Most of Apple employees are in marketing and legal field. Apple has been patenting the hell out of thin air (pinching and stuff). Nokia’s patents comes from real research that costs real money. Nokia pretty much invented the phone as we know it today. They designed GSM and the network of tower back-end for mobile phones. Apples adds a nice touch interface and puts some big money in marketing and they have the highest profit margin of them all (no wonder there)
Apple can afford to pay the patents to Nokia and they should do it. Nokia will spend that money on further development and that beats filling the pocket of useless Apple share holders.
I dislike Apple quite a lot, and I’ve always owned Nokia phones, but I think Nokia is in the wrong here. A big company suing another big company over patents is ridiculous because the defending company will likely be able to countersue over its own patents. The result will often be settlement and cross-licensing of some patents, but it’s a nasty way of accomplishing this (if it was your goal in the first place).
At least it’s not as bad as the CSIRO, who waited until wifi was ubiquitous and then started suing companies for merely shipping products that contained other manufacturers’ wifi chipsets.
Likely to, yes. So what should Nokia then do? Just let Apple use their technology for free or for a very small fee because they will probably counter-sue Nokia anyway?
I’m sure Nokia took their time to work out a solid case. I mean the iPhone is on the market for quite some time now and it’s making a lot of cash for Apple using Nokia’s technology, I can’t see why Nokia should not be paid accordingly.
Besides that, Apple has a long history of suing company’s and/or individuals, Nokia doesn’t.
I think Apple is an evil company, known for their monopolistic and dominant behavior over their partners and customers. I mean even talking about their new tablet PC can get you a cease and desist letter from their army of lawyers.
There has been a lot of talk about RAND terms and whether Nokia is trying to charge to much for their patents. What I think most of you are missing is that RAND terms probably only applies to so called essential patents, which are patents that are necessary to implement a certain standard/specification.
I’m basing this on the ETSI IPR policy which ought to be quite similar to those of the other associations.
Let’s take a silly example: Imagine that there is some specification that requires you to sort a list. There are only two know algorithms for sorting: bubble sort and quick sort, now imagine that some company has a patent for quick sort. That would mean that it is possible to implement the specification without having to buy a license (in other words there are no essential patents) but there exists a so called implementation patent, and usually the owner of that patent is free to charge as much as he likes for that.
I don’t know what kind of patents the one Nokia wants to sell are, but I would guess that they are implementation patents an not essential patents.
Edited 2010-01-18 19:28 UTC
Apple is becoming far worse than Microsoft with their draconian/gestapo tactics.
Screw them and their products. I was thinking of buying a Macbook, but I’ve had it with every other story seemingly being “Apple sends lawyers after Company X or Person Y for farting in Steve Job’s general direction.”
osnews should change name to we hate apple inc and steve jobs news
i know every idiot will vote this down!
Edited 2010-01-19 09:28 UTC
I wish I could. Too bad I already posted.
Off-topic or troll? (can’t select both unfortunately)
Maybe you can RTFA? It’s not OSNews that is attacking Apple! It’s about Nokia and Apple, you idiot! OSNews is just reporting the story.
Edited 2010-01-19 09:46 UTC
You’re welcome
Yet another uncompetitive European corporation elects to use legal wrangling to compensate for being completely outmanuevered in the marketplace. Nokia should abandon the smartphone market to the pros and focus on making cheap phones for the 3rd world. A ban on Nokia products in the US? I think it already exists in the form of Nokia’s US marketshare.