Nokia Hits Apple With Complaint Alleging Patent Infringement, Again
Nokia has already filed a number of patent infringement lawsuits against Apple going back to October 2009 when Nokia alleged in a suit filed in federal district court in Delaware that the Apple iPhone violated 10 Nokia patents. In May 2010 Nokia sued in the federal district court in Wisconsin claiming that the iPhone 3G infringed five Nokia patents. And late last year Nokia brought similar suits against Apple in several European countries.
Apple has disputed Nokia's claims and in some cases has filed countersuits against Nokia. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Nokia’s latest legal move.
The legal nastiness comes as Apple, Nokia, Google and Microsoft battle it out in the increasingly competitive smartphone market. While Nokia remains the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phone handsets, it has been losing market share to the Apple iPhone and mobile devices that use Google’s Android mobile operating system.
Last month Nokia and Microsoft unveiled a broad strategic alliance under which the two companies will develop a new mobile device ecosystem based on Microsoft's Windows Phone software to compete against rivals Apple and Google. The latest complaint was filed with the ITC in Washington D.C., which has the power to block imports of products that infringe on U.S. patents. Although Nokia filed an earlier complaint against Apple with the ITC charging violation of five Nokia patents, last week the commission made an initial ruling in Apple’s favor.
"Our latest ITC filing means we now have 46 Nokia patents in suit against Apple, many filed more than 10 years before Apple made its first iPhone," said Paul Melin, vice president of intellectual property at Espoo, Finland-based Nokia, in a statement. "Nokia is a leading innovator in technologies needed to build great mobile products and Apple must stop building its products using Nokia's proprietary innovation."
The latest complaint filed with the ITC relates to seven patents covering such areas as multi-tasking operating systems, data synchronization, positioning, call quality and the use of Bluetooth accessories, Nokia said.
Nokia said the legal cases filed in federal court and in Europe cover the same patents as the ITC complaints, along with additional patents.
Nokia also said it disagrees with the ITC's initial determination last week in Nokia's earlier complaint and is waiting to see the full details of that ruling before deciding its next legal steps.
Nokia said that in the last two decades it has spent some 43 billion Euros on research and development to build what it called one of the wireless industry's "strongest and broadest" patent portfolios.