For those who remember the issues related to Palm's WebOS and Pre smartphone, when Apple and Palm ended up agreeing that they had both used patented technology from the respective camps, it seems like Apple will now get involved in another patent dispute.
Today, Nokia announced that it has filed a complaint against Apple with the Federal District Court in Delware, alleging that Apple's iPhone infringes Nokia patents for GSM, UMTS and wireless LAN (WLAN) standards.
Nokia has created one of the strongest and broadest patent portfolios in the industry, investing more than EUR 40 billion in R&D during the last two decades. Much of this intellectual property, including the patents in suit, has been declared essential to industry standards.
Nokia has already successfully entered into license agreements including these patents with approximately 40 companies, including virtually all the leading mobile device vendors, allowing the industry to benefit from Nokia's innovation.
The ten patents in suit relate to technologies fundamental to making devices which are compatible with one or more of the GSM, UMTS (3G WCDMA) and wireless LAN standards. The patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption and are infringed by all Apple iPhone models shipped since the iPhone was introduced in 2007.
We applaud Nokia for defending its patents, as the patent dispute between Apple and Palm earlier this year reminded us of how easy it can be even for well-known corporations to turn to some kind of camaraderie, that in no way can be beneficial to the huge amount of people involved in the hard work of developing and manufacturing mobile devices on the floor.
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