Nokia filed patent infringement claims in Germany and the U.S. claiming Apple is violating 32 patents being used in Apple products.
One year after settling an international patent dispute with Ericsson, Apple is now being taken to task by Nokia over alleged patent infringements.
In a filing with three Regional Courts in Germany, and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District in Texas, Nokia claims Apple is violating 32 patents covering display, user interface, software, antenna, chipset and video coding that are being used in Apple products.
Nokia stated that since 2011, the two companies have had a licensing agreement in place covering some patents, but Apple is now using some patents that are not part of the licensing agreement.
“Through our sustained investment in research and development, Nokia has created or contributed to many of the fundamental technologies used in today’s mobile devices, including Apple products,” explained Ilkka Rahnasto, head of Nokia’s patent business, in a statement. “After several years of negotiations trying to reach agreement to cover Apple’s use of these patents, we are now taking action to defend our rights.”
Apple in turn is reported to have filed legal proceedings against Acacia Research and Conversant Intellectual Property Management, accusing those firms of colluding with Nokia in the patent case. The lawsuit was filed by Apple following Conversant naming Boris Teksler as its new CEO, with Teksler having previously served as director of patent licensing and strategy at Apple between 2009 and 2013.
“We’ve always been willing to pay a fair price to secure the rights of patents covering technology in our products,” said Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock, in a Reuters story. “Unfortunately, Nokia has refused to license their patents on a fair basis and is now using the tactics of a patent troll to attempt to extort money from Apple by applying a royalty rate to Apple’s own inventions they had nothing to do with.”
In 2011, Apple paid Nokia a lump sum and agreed to patent licensing fees connected with “technologies for enhanced speech and data transmission, using positioning data in applications and innovations in antenna configurations that improve performance and save space.”
Patent lawsuits are nothing new to the telecom space, or even to Apple. The company last December announced a seven-year deal with Ericsson ending legal proceedings in four countries, which included “a cross license that covers patents relating to both companies’ standard-essential patents (including the GSM, UMTS and LTE cellular standards) and grants certain other patent rights.”
Apple has also been in a long-simmering legal dispute with Samsung regarding smartphone design, which recently reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
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