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Nokia sues Apple for infringement of multiple patents
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- lispm 17y agothey are getting desperate
- buro9 17y agoNah, they're probably out to implement something that Apple has patented and that Apple isn't willing to licence. I'm betting they'll settle on a patent sharing agreement.
- launic 17y agoYes, it can be this, or it might be as well exactly what the press releases says. In other words, Apple is to arrogant to pay licensing fees for what other are already paying. "Nokia has already successfully entered into license agreements including these patents with approximately 40 companies, including virtually all the leading mobile device vendors, allowing the industry to benefit from Nokia's innovation."
- lispm 17y agoI wonder which patents Nokia wants to have access to.
- shiranaihito 17y agoWhat the hell.. ? I thought us Finns didn't do lame greed-lawsuits.
- jonknee 17y agoMaybe it's not a lame greed lawsuit? Nokia has IP in every GSM phone... Perhaps Apple isn't licensing like they are supposed to? We'll have to see how it pans out.
- pistoriusp 17y agoIf you can't beat them, sue them? "The patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption and are infringed by all Apple iPhone models." I would love to know exactly what they are suing for?
- stdan27 17y agoI was thinking exactly the same thing. Am I too pessimistic in thinking they're suing for a 'slice of the pie'?
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- zokier 17y agoWell, atleast Nokia has done quite a lot of research on that field, so its not just patent trolling.
- protomyth 17y agoUnfortunately, a lot of these patents are the overly broad variety. I wonder if this is just Nokia's attempt to get a cross licensing deal with Apple. The amount that was quoted ($200mil) is extremely low.
- jacquesm 17y agoOk, I just bought my last nokia phone. Screw them and the horse they rode in on, this is just a bid of weakness. If you can't compete with your product line in fair ways then you should revamp your product line, not turn to your lawyers. What a bunch of losers. I've been using Nokia phones for the last decade, with a two week 'diversion' to Samsung (talk about bad firmware). Nokia has an 'ok' product but it could be a whole lot better, I'm as loyal as can be but software patents are a bad thing and using them like this is just plain dumb. Bye Bye Nokia, you once were an outstanding company.
- crc32 17y agoAre they software patents? It's not clear from the press release.
- jacquesm 17y ago"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" Pretty clear to me. Encoding, data, security and encryption are all software issues, not hardware issues.
- chaosprophet 17y agoActually all of those can be done at the hardware level, but I'm pretty sure that aint the way Apple is doing it, so yeah has to be software.
- tumult 17y agoSoftware patents don't specifically patent software. They patent a machine implementation of an idea. The hardware you speak of needs some kind of control logic anyway. So it's covered either way.
- axod 17y ago
- rimantas 17y agoRepeating the bit about spending "EUR 40 billion in R&D during the last two decades" adds more weight to it?
- andreyf 17y agoYes, the idea is, they spent 40 billion creating IP, now they get the government to enforce a monopoly on that IP for them. That's the point of patents.
- tumult 17y agoIf I flush 50 million dollars down a toilet, can I too have the government enforce broad patents on software practices that are obvious and have existed for years?
- chaosprophet 17y agoI believe the patents Nokia speaks of were neither obvious, nor existed for years when Nokia originally patented them. Nokia's IP is present in every GSM phone.
- tspiteri 17y agoAre you comparing spending money in R&D to flushing money down a toilet? Not letting R&D money be flushed money would be a good reason to support patents.
- jacquesm 17y agosent to communication.corp@nokia.com : Dear Nokia, For more than a decade I've been a loyal user of your products, pretty much every year or so I would upgrade my phone to your latest model. Today that comes to an end. My reason is that I think that companies should compete on quality and price, not to use software patents as a means of stifling competition. Software Patents were a mistake when they were granted to begin with, to see the proud company that Nokia once was stoop to the use of the dirtiest weapons in business is really sad. I realize that my voice hardly counts in issues like this, but I figured that by letting you know, you are aware that there is another price attached to this lawsuit. best regards, Jacques Mattheij
- pwmanagerdied 17y agoDoesn't Apple abuse patents too? In Job's original iPhone presentation, didn't he say something like "and we've patented the hell out of it"? Unless you don't but Apple either, which makes sense.
- jacquesm 17y agoNo Iphones here.
- pwmanagerdied 17y agoGood on you, then.
- axod 17y agoThe system is broken. If a company had a successful product, and didn't "patent the hell out of it", others would get those patents, and sue it. So personally, I don't blame companies for patenting. I do blame companies that sue. But the system needs fixing.
- borism 17y agoYou like to have rules, but don't like them to be enforced?
- noonespecial 17y agoWhile I strongly disagree with this at best destructive, at worst childish use of our legal system, lets not forget that apple has been only too quick to use similar tactics whenever it suits them. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/05/apple-sues-woolworths-ove_n_309450.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/05/apple-sues-woolwort... What do the say about those who live by the sword?
- tumult 17y agoThat was a suit to defend their trademark. They just had to stop using the logo. Nokia is suing Apple because they've been beaten at handsets and are losing money, and someone decided this was their best shot at getting back.
- noonespecial 17y agoYes but despite the downvotes, I'm sicking to this one. There was litte danger of confusion between brands, Apple basically just made a nuisance of itself. Apple has a long history of heavy handed legal tactics against much weaker entities, including bloggers and critics. Apple innovates. They have a real product, so they often find themselves on this end of the stick when it comes to patents. In other matters however, they seem quite comfortable swing it. Especially at small heads. I suppose there's no small element of schadenfreude here to see the tables turned and Apple unfairly harassed by a perversion of the law.
- GHFigs 17y agoFactually inaccurate. Apple did not sue Woolworths. Apple registered an objection against the granting of Woolworth's trademark during the period that the granting agency (IP Australia) specifically asks for objections to be filed. From Wikipedia's entry on Australian trademark law: If an application is accepted it will be published for opposition purposes for three months, during which time third parties may oppose registration on certain grounds. If there are no oppositions, or any oppositions are overcome, a certificate of registration will issue. The term of registration in Australia is 10 years
- bshep 17y agoThe release is not clear where the infringement is, but AFAIK the GSM compatibility is in the GSM modem. I dont know if Apple is liable if the infringement is by the modem in the iPhone since Apple doesnt make the modem, they buy it from another company.
- mtarnovan 17y agoLaunching this lawsuit at a point where Apple stock is at an all-time high might not be a coincidence.
- chaosprophet 17y agoYeah and apparently Apple stock fell after the announcement.
- Shooter 17y agoNokia has always been fairly quick on the IP lawsuit trigger, I think. They sued one of my earlier companies (biofeedback and health monitoring in phones/PDAs, etc.) after we demonstrated the devices at a very small (<50 people, including startup teams) conference. They have ridiculously broad patents in the mobile area. And they have very ambitious plans. Of course, they still have no device on the market that does what our devices could do, and probably never will. I hope Bilski changes some of the patent BS for the better.
- jacquesm 17y agoThat's really beyond the pale, and probably even worse than the subject of this article.
- kenshi 17y agoIt's going to be interesting to watch how Nokia squares up their Pro-Open Source message (see: maemo) with their IP enforcement strategies. Nokia have of course every right to enforce their IP, but PR wise they look very lame for this move. The timing (just as Apple announces a record quarter) and the fact they clearly have failed to make a competitive product to the iPhone, just makes them look desperate.
- Ras_ 17y agoToo bad that journalists in Finland can't write about these ...if they want to keep their job. Nokia is too big a player in a small pond.
- cromulent 17y ago"We like competition because it makes us better, but we will not stand for companies infringing on our IP and we will use whatever weapons we have at our disposal." Tim Cook, Apple COO, Jan 21 2009.
- srn 17y agoIsn't apple just as bad with itunes and the palm pre? http://www.technewsworld.com/story/67615.html?wlc=1256230659 http://www.technewsworld.com/story/67615.html?wlc=1256230659 Google isn't immune either http://phandroid.com/2009/09/25/cyanogen-gets-cd-from-google/ http://phandroid.com/2009/09/25/cyanogen-gets-cd-from-google... None of these companies are golden. Buy what works for you.
- protomyth 17y agoWell, Apple hasn't sued Palm for a patent violation and Palm is the one violating the USB IF's rules on device identification.
- omouse 17y agoFucking A. This is going to be awesome :D
- stevenbedrick 17y agoWhat I don't get: the iPhone came out in, what, 2007? Why is Nokia only just now getting around to suing Apple over these patents?
- omouse 17y agoMaybe they were busy making products and trying to sell them? Maybe Apple's lawyers were stalling them and Nokia let it slide?
- jacquesm 17y agoBecause they just realized they can't make something that will compete with the Iphone without violating apples patents ? So they figure rather than to wait they should sue first, hope to get apples attention in a way they can't ignore and 'settle' for cross licensing. And so the madness continues. Nokia should give up their software patents and simply make a stand instead of going out of their way to look like losers here. They were one of the most r&d driven companies in the world after Xerox, the stuff they did was pretty groundbreaking, unfortunately in the field of software that allows you to take out patents. That should have never happened. Nokia was one of the parties lobbying the EU very hard to allow software patents: http://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Software_patents http://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Software_patents Now you can see why.
- johng 17y agohttp://www.talkiphone.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/nokia-suing-apple1.gif http://www.talkiphone.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/nokia-s...