Nokia sues Apple again, this time seeking ITC injunction
Published: 4 January, 2010
READ MORE: US | Apple | Nokia | User Experience | Handset | UMTS | Wi-Fi
Nokia has turned to Apple to fill the void in its life, left by the 2008 settlement of its tit-for-tat legal battle with Qualcomm. The handset leader sued Apple for patent infringement in October, and was countersued last month, and now Nokia has upped the ante with a new suit, filed with the US International Trade Commission (ITC).
This broadens the original complaint significantly, taking it beyond the iPhone and claiming that Apple "infringes Nokia patents in virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players and computers". Seven patents are involved, in the areas of user interface, camera, antenna and power management technologies. All these are critical to competitiveness in smartphones and other portable devices, because they help to reduce manufacturing cost and product size, as well as boosting battery life.
The suit differs from the original one, filed in Delaware nearly three months ago. This cited 10 Nokia patents, most of them fundamental to GSM, WLAN or UMTS and widely licensed by other handset makers. Nokia alleges that every iPhone model sold has infringed on these patents - which include wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption. The filing's catchline was that the iPhone maker was "attempting to get a free ride on the back of Nokia's innovation".
"While our litigation in Delaware is about Apple's attempt to free ride on the back of Nokia's investment in wireless standards, the ITC case filed today is about Apple's practice of building its business on Nokia's proprietary innovation," Nokia general manager of patent licensing Paul Melin said in a statement.
In the ITC action, Nokia is moving closer to the key sources of Apple's strength in mobile devices, such as user interface, which lay at the heart of the US firm's own retaliation in December. This filing claimed that "Nokia chose to copy the iPhone, especially its enormously popular and patented design and user interface", and added:
"Other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours." It focused on 13 Apple patents.
The ITC will probably decide whether to act on the case within the next 30 days, but any decision is unlikely until well into next year.
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