Apple's Countersuit Accuses Nokia Of Stealing

In a suit filed this week, Apple accuses Nokia of violating 13 Apple patents in the development of Nokia's mobile portfolio. Speaking for Apple, general counsel Bruce Sewell said in a statement Friday that "other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours."

The 79-page Apple suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, and not only does Apple deny infringing any of the 10 patents named by Nokia in its Oct. 22 suit against Apple, but also lists 13 patents it says Nokia is actively violating.

Nokia's original lawsuit, filed in October, accuses Apple of infringing on 10 of its patents and asks Apple to pay up on license fees because it alleges Apple's been getting a "free ride" for too long. Apple's reply takes things up a notch. Not only does Apple describe the Nokia patents in question as not essential to GSM/UMTS, it accuses Nokia of wanting unreasonable license terms from Apple for its patents.

Apple also details which Nokia models it says violate its patents, calling out the Nokia S60, E71 and 5310 models by name. Further, in the lawsuit filing, Apple even drags up a quote from Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia's executive vice president and general manager of multimedia, to discredit its competitor:

"As Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia's executive Vice President and General Manager of Multimedia, stated at Nokia's GoPlay event in 2007 when asked about the similarities of Nokia's new offerings to the already released iPhone: "[i]f there is something good in the world, we copy with pride." True to this quote, Nokia has demonstrated its willingness to copy Apple's iPhone ideas as well as Apple's basic computing technologies, all while demanding Apple pay for access to Nokia's purported standards essential patent. Apple seeks redress for this behavior."

That's one of a few direct swipes at Nokia's business model. This statement is also in the lawsuit:

"The iPhone platform has caused a revolutionary change in the mobile phone category ... In contrast, Nokia made a different business decision and remained focused on traditional mobile wireless handsets with conventional user interfaces. As a result, Nokia has rapidly lost share in the market for high-end mobile phones. Nokia has admitted that, as a result of the iPhone launch, "the market changed suddenly and [Nokia was] not fast enough changing with it. "

Translation? The gloves are off, Nokia.

For reference, the patents Apple accuses Nokia of violating are as follows, according to the text of the court filing:

-- Patent No. 5, 634, 074 : Serial I/O device identifies itself to a computer through a serial interface during power on reset then it is being configured by the computer;

-- Patent No. 6, 343, 263 B1 : Real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data;

-- Patent No. 5,915,131 : Method and apparatus for handling I/O requests utilizing separate programming interfaces to access separate I/O services;

-- Patent No. 5,555,369: Method of creating packages for a pointer-based computer system;

-- Patent No. 6,239,795 B1: Pattern and color abstraction in a graphical user interface;

-- Patent No. 5,315,703: Object-oriented notification framework system;

-- Patent No. 6,189,034 B1: Method and apparatus for dynamic launching of a teleconferencing application upon receipt of a call;

-- Patent No. 7,469,381, B2: List scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display;

-- Patent No. RE 39, 486 E: Extensible, replaceable network component system;

-- Patent No. 5,455,854: Object-oriented telephony system;

-- Patent No. 7,383,453 B2: Conserving power by reducing voltage supplied to an instruction-processing portion of a processor;

-- Patent No. 5,848,105: GMSK signal processors for improved communications capacity and quality;

-- Patent No. 5, 379,431: Boot framework architecture for dynamic staged initial program load.