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Apple and Nokia in Tit for Tat Patent Squabble
(18 Jan 2010, BWCS Staff)The legal scrap over patents between Nokia and Apple has intensified, with the US pc-turned-phone-maker trying to have imports of Nokia handsets banned from America. On Friday, Apple made a formal request to the US International Trade Commission to block imports from the Finnish phone maker, until the dispute between the two manufacturers is resolved.
Apple's move mirrors Nokia's own complaint filed with the ITC in December, which alleged that the iPhone-maker was infringing on several of Nokia's patents "in virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players and computers." As a result, Nokia asked the independent federal agency to ban imports of Apple's iPhone, iPod and MacBook.
In response to Apple's latest move, Nokia has merely said it will study the complaint, but pointed out that it does not alter the fact that "Apple has failed to agree to 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."
In October 2009, Nokia filed a licensing claim in the US for "intellectual property payment" from every iPhone sold by Apple. The move could cost the US pc giant many millions of dollars with Nokia alleging that the iPhone infringes on ten of its patents. The suit came hot on the heels of the Finnish company's first quarterly loss announcement in over a decade, a loss put down in part to the success of the iPhone which has eaten into is previously lucrative share of the market. In comparison, Apple announced a 46% increase in profits.
Nokia, which has an enormous patent portfolio, is suing over the use of its patented technologies that relate to making devices compatible with current wireless standards - GSM, UTMS (3G-WDMA) and wireless LAN. Nokia claims that it has spent over £36 billion on the research that developed these technologies and wants compensation from Apple over their unlicensed use.
Licence payments are typically just a few dollars but Apple is expected to be selling around 80 million iPhones a year by 2012, compensation is likely to run into millions of dollars. The industry standard is such that companies who contribute to the development of a technology create intellectual property rights, which others then need to compensate them for. Nokia has many such agreements with mobile operators.
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