Nokia Alleges iPhone Violates Patents — There’s a Slap for That
Nokia surprised the industry by smacking Apple with a patent infringement suit. The Finnish company claims that the iPhone violates ten of Nokia’s patents regarding technology behind smartphone connectivity. From the Nokia press release:
“The ten patents in suit relate to technologies fundamental to making devices which are compatible with one or more of the GSM, UMTS (3G WCDMA) and wireless LAN standards. The patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption and are infringed by all Apple iPhone models shipped since the iPhone was introduced in 2007.
“The basic principle in the mobile industry is that those companies who contribute in technology development to establish standards create intellectual property, which others then need to compensate for,” said Ilkka Rahnasto, Vice President, Legal & Intellectual Property at Nokia. “Apple is also expected to follow this principle. By refusing to agree appropriate terms for Nokia’s intellectual property, Apple is attempting to get a free ride on the back of Nokia’s innovation.”
While this seems like another frivolous patent suit on the surface, Nokia has licensed this technology to forty companies comprised of most of the smartphone players. Nokia has been in negotiations to license the technology to Apple who according to Nokia is refusing to play ball. According to GigaOM, Nokia is asking for 1 to 2 percent royalty on every iPhone sold since 2007. It sounds like Apple may have a hard time getting out of this mess without writing a big check to Nokia.
I say Apple should take part of their hoard of $30+ billion in cash and tie this up in the courts for 10 or more years. If that fails they can hire a private invasion force to just take over Finland and be done with it. Either way Apple wins this frivolous lawsuit. Nokia’s sad and pathetic attempt at besmirching Apple’s good name should be met with fierce opposition and vigorously defended in Courts of the United States of America. God bless this country and shame on Nokia. They must pay a high price for their actions. Lock and Load fellas.
Wow. Apple fanboy much?
Assuming you’re not just being facetious (you’re close to being over the top there, but not quite, so it’s hard to tell if you’re making fun of jingoists and fanboys, or being one) … Nokia did a ton of research into developing phones over the last 2 decades. This isn’t a patent-troll situation, they did actual research, got actual patents, and have been licensing these patents legitimately to other companies.
If Apple is using those patents without paying, then (assuming the validity of patents in general) Apple is legally and ethically bound to pay for it. And should get slapped hard for trying to weasel out of it.
That said, I doubt this has anything to do with money. While I’m sure some monetary payment will be involved, I bet the sting point in the negotiations has been that Nokia wants to do patent cross licensing so that they can use some of the iPhone UI patents in their upcoming touch screen phones. And, I’m willing to bet that Apple isn’t willing to go down that road, at all.
In the end, assuming Apple really is infringing, I expect that’s exactly what we’ll see:
1) Apple paying some nominal payment for past infringement.
2) Apple and Nokia signing a cross-patent license agreement.
It certainly is hard (and I say this as a European) to not view Nokias lawsuit, on first look, as something like what SGI tried to pull with Unix – “we can’t compete on making great devices that people want, so let’s sue.” Especially as this comes out when they announce hundreds of millions in loss.
However, I do believe this is just a case of a nasty coincidental timing – vigorously defending your patents and copyrights and being compensated for your work is exactly what patents were created for, and if Apple is using patented Nokia technologies, they’ll have to pony up like everybody else.
As for Brutus up there… since he can actually spell, I’ll have to chalk that up to a joke too. If he were really that big of a knuckle-dragger, there would be the usual spelling errors, lack of punctuation and all that which normally accompanies a posting filled with such rampant insanity.
This seems to not be a one-off thing. Nokia has successfully licensed these technologies to dozens of companies, so it would appear the patents are worthwhile for companies to pay for them. Apple probably should just pay up like everyone else.
I believe Apple has a few patents in the mobile space as well relating to GUI, mouse gestures, etc. The patent lawyers at Apple might feel they have some leverage of their own. Who knows. Time for Apple to Lawyer Up and plan a Reverse Slap upside Nokia’s big head .
Get ready to rumble…
Nokia hasn’t infringed upon any Apple patents, so I don’t see your point. And Nokia has a majority of the patents for data and phone transmission, so it looks like the REAL innovator gets to show how Apple has made so much cash. THEY DON’T PAY THEIR BILLS! Shame on Apple.
In the fight of the mega IT giants, hope the public get a good deal.