“The filing last Thursday was the latest salvo in a battle that began in October 2009 when Finnish handset maker Nokia sued Apple, saying the iPhone infringed on 10 of its patents,” Keizer reports. “Apple countered in December with a lawsuit of its own that not only claimed Nokia infringed 13 of its patents, but that Nokia also violated antitrust law by legally attacking Apple after it declined to pay what it called “exorbitant royalties” and refused to give Nokia access to iPhone patents.”
Keizer reports, “It was the six non-patent claims by Apple that Nokia asked U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Sleet to throw out last week… Nokia urged Sleet to dismiss Apple’s claims. ‘Sometimes a patent dispute is just a patent dispute,’ Nokia said of its fight with Apple after licensing negotiations broke down. ‘Through what charitably could be called an attempt at legal alchemy, Apple employs revisionist history, misleading characterizations, unsupported allegations and flawed and contradictory legal theories to turn these fruitless negotiations into a multi-count federal lawsuit,’ Nokia charged.”
“Both Nokia and Apple have also filed infringement actions with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to block imports of each other’s phones, and in the case of Nokia’s filing, virtually every Apple hardware product, including iPods and Macs,” Keizer reports. “A separate lawsuit, which covers the patents alleged in the ITC complaint, was put on hold two weeks ago by Sleet pending the Washington D.C. agency’s ruling.”
Full article here.
Can someone show me where alchemy is ILLEGAL?
Apple is asking for a reasonable royalty agreement with Nokia, which is trying to use leverage to gain access to multi-touch technology.
The royalty paid by multiple others has been established for the record…. that will lay down the foundation of any agreement if warranted. This is a relatively short term prospect if the sides are willing to negotiate.
Multi-touch patents are another situation altogether. Litigation is in early stages and no agreements have been made, that remains to be hammered out. Nokia is in a rough spot here, as is Android and Windows Phone 7.
My guess is that Apple is about to do a deal with Microsoft that will lay down the foundation for royalties on multi-touch…. that’s when things will start happening real quick.
Is Nokia out of their mind ?
Charge M$ $500.00 for each phone using multi-touch. Sounds fair to me!
We all know that steve has turned lead into gold.
Now, can Steve, with his magic robe make Nokia disappear?
Violation of Anti Trust Laws is tantamount to extortion.
Apple will not negotiate multitouch patent licensing. Its too core to their products and differentiation. The others want it and will do whatever, like Nokia is now doing. They only know how to ‘copy with pride’, such asswipes.
Unlike most others, Apple has no interest nor motivation to share their patents. The others have to based upon legal agreements.
Nokia, suck it deep.
Don’t tell Steve Jobs that alchemy isn’t possible. He turned a nose-diving company into the third largest company in the United States.
“revisionist history, misleading characterizations, unsupported allegations and flawed and contradictory legal theories”
Also known as lawyering. Nokia is as well versed in it as anyone.
Look, it’s OK to license multi-touch to Microsoft because you just know that Windows 7 Phone, with or without multi-touch, will be a major flop. It stands to reason. Microsoft fucks everything up.
The trouble is, after giving Microsoft a license, you pretty well have to give one to every Android using, cell phone manufacturer. One or more of them are bound to get it right on the second or third try.
So, no, “Apple is not in the IP licensing business”.
Nokia is going to court to force Apple to cross license patents and allow Nokia to use multi-touch gestures.
Every other iPhone rival just stole the multi-tough technology.
Who is the bigger pirate?
If I were on Apple’s legal team, I would argue that by calling it legal alchemy, Nokia is admitting that it isn’t illegal.
Therefore, Apple is operating legally, within the bounds of the law.
so when apple sues HTC its ok because apple is protecting their own IP
but when its nokia that sues apple to protects its own IP because apple doesn’t want to pay licensing fees, nokia is the one that is out ifs mind
you apple fanbois are out of your minds
and apple didn’t “invent” multi-touch, they just trademarked the name and patented the IDEA of using it on a phone, people shouldn’t be able to patent vague ideas
@ ok
[…] The problem for Nokia is that the company has already committed itself to license its standards-related patents using “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.”
[…]
While Apple has contributed a variety of its patented technologies to open standards which are licensed under “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms,” it also has a variety of technologies that are not related to any open standards. These differentiate the iPod and iPhone, and are sold directly to consumers rather than being broadly licensed to other technology companies to use.
Nokia hoped to leverage its pooled patents to gain access to Apple’s private patents, patents Nokia had already began using in its own phones, a grossly hypocritical move after alleging that Apple had stolen its technologies because it wasn’t innovative enough to develop its own.
So this is not a case of tit-for-tat as virtually every report so far has suggested. It’s a case of Nokia, finding itself well behind the curve in mobile phones, attempting to extort unfair, unreasonable, and discriminatory licensing terms against Apple for patents which Nokia has already committed to license under fair reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/12/11/the-real-patent-story-behind-apple-vs-nokia/
ok:
It’s NOT ok to discriminate in licensing fees, which is what Nokia did. If everyone pays 25ç per use, Apple should be charged that much too not 10 times more. No fanboism here just conventional industry practices when licensing. Extortion is another story as in I won’t licese this commonly licensed widget unless you :
A. let me into your patented implemented technology
B. Pay 10 time what everyone else is paying.
Apple wouldn’t have received a patent on it’s so called propriety “Multi Touch” Technology
and implementation if it there was prior art that proved it was not Apple’s.
Ideas, as any patent expert will tell you, moron, are NOT patentable.
Gosh breeze, thanks for the chuckle, “morons are not patentable.” Reminds of a friend who once told me: “Everytime they make something foolproof…it just allows more fools to be born.”
Sure to be a lot of fun lawsuits coming up. The lawyers will be reinvesting in bridges and swampland.
Damn… I shoulda gone to law school. There’s gonna be some serious money made by the sheisters… no matter who wins or loses.
What, no completely biased MDN take on this one? I’m sorry, but Nokia is under no obligation to have “reasonable” royalty rates. Excuse me, it’s their technology. You want to use it, you pay a license fee. If you don’t like the license fee, find your own technology.
Seems like Apple likes to beat HTC over the head with that, but they don’t want to play by their own rules. I’m all for Apple going after anyone who infringes on their licensed technology, but if you can’t take the heat, then get out of the kitchen.
@ PlayNice
” Nokia is under no obligation to have “reasonable” royalty rates”
Nokia have already committed to reasonable royalty rates by historically charging every other phone manufacturer the same cost for licensing…
All except for Apple, which they thought they could extract more from. That is tantamount to extortion.
Get it now!
You Moron.
Sheesh PlayNice, might I suggest a chill. Read the article, read rude Mac’s reply. Consider the analogy.
Someone invents a new technology. Sure they have no obligation to license it. Or they can license it for an exorbitant fee. However, if they so choose to license it, they have to be CONSISTENT.
If Nokia charges say $2 for a license fee to some and $15 dollars to Apple “just because.” then there are going to be repercussions.
It’s like when you go buy bread. You ever go buy bread and discover that someone in front of the line has the same loaf of bread as you? You know something, they will probably pay the exact same price for the same loaf of bread as you do.
I really haven’t come across the situation where I have witnessed someone paying $15 for a loaf of bread because they had brown eyes or blonde hair while I paid $2 for the same loaf of bread.
There are some exceptions of course, volume discounts, location and sleazy used car salesmen, but as Rude Mac and others have put it, what Nokia appears to be doing falls more under the extortion discrimination category.
Now mind you that certainly does not give Apple to take and use Nokia’s technology without a license. So it will be interesting to watch this case unfold. I know I will be open to changing my mind as new fact are revealed and the story unfolds.
Hrmm didn’t apple “copy” the GUI from early 70s Xerox proof of concept machines? Contrary to what most people think, apple did not invent as many things as you are led to believe.
So. You can patent touch screen ? Anyone patent the QWERTY keyboard layout and use? I think I am going to patent breathing with the in and out chest motion or walking with 2 feet. I’ll be rich!
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Andreeccm:
and once you get into the patenting application, challenges and process, you’ll realize how stupid you make yourself look by talking shit.
The underlying issue is not a difference in price for use of patented technology. It is that Nokia holds patents for items that have been incorporated into the Standards and Apple’s use of them customary and anticipated. Apple’s patents are non-Standards based. It is customary when 2 or more firms hold patents over items that become part of the Standards to cross licence.
Apple is within rights to use and expect fair licence terms when using items contained within independently established published industry Standards. Nokia is within their rights to request cross licencing, however I doubt a judge will grant it.
Apple should prevail on this but we all know who wins whenever parties end up in court. This seems like a case of one party throwing a lot of stink and hoping it will stick. Some will. Apple will be tarred and feathered In the press and heaps of people will have their opinions reinforced. Big deal. It isn’t hurting Apple’s advances.
@Playnice
Come to Mummy baby.
Titty time for yoooooo,
i’m tired of haters…. apple bought the GUI and Windows bought DOS from someone… blah blah. it’s about re-invention… phone, music player… tablet… the only thing apple invented was the PC. if you are buying on the history of the company then why in the heck you running windows.