Nokia files fresh lawsuit against Apple

Nokia Corp. is staying vigilant during the holiday season as the handset giant today filed a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission claiming Apple Inc. is infringing on seven Nokia patents that are in virtually all of Apple’s products, including phones, portable music players and computers.
Nokia claims that Apple is using its patents to create features in its user interface, camera, antenna and power management technologies.
Nokia’s move is the latest in a series of lawsuits between the two technology giants that began in October when Nokia filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Delaware alleging Apple’s iPhone infringed on 10 Nokia patents for GSM, UMTS and wireless local area network standards. Apple countered the move earlier this month filing a lawsuit claiming Nokia was infringing on 13 Apple patents.
“Nokia has been the leading developer of many key technologies in small electronic devices” said Paul Melin, GM of Patent Licensing at Nokia in a statement regarding the latest legal action. “This action is about protecting the results of such pioneering development. While our litigation in Delaware is about Apple’s attempt to free-ride on the back of Nokia investment in wireless standards, the ITC case filed today is about Apple’s practice of building its business on Nokia’s proprietary innovation.”
The tussle between the two companies is seen by many as an attempt by Nokia to regain its position in the mobile handset space that it still dominates in total number of sales, but is seen as falling behind in mindshare of consumers. This is most apparent in the North American market where Apple has quickly leaped to the top of the fast-growing smartphone space while Nokia continues to languish in the space.
Nokia was in a similar technology battle with Qualcomm Inc. over patents that culminated in a 15-year agreement and Nokia paying more than $2 billion to Qualcomm. The two companies earlier this year announced an agreement where Nokia would use Qualcomm’s 3G chips in its devices.