iLounge

By Charles Starrett

Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Tuesday, December 29, 2009
News Category: Apple

Nokia has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission alleging that Apple infringes on the Finnish company’s patents “in virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players, and computers.” According to the company’s announcement, the complaint centers on seven Nokia patents related to user interfaces, as well as camera, antenna, and power management technologies, all of which allow for a “better user experience, lower manufacturing costs, smaller size and longer battery life for Nokia products.”

“Nokia has been the leading developer of many key technologies in small electronic devices” said Paul Melin, General Manager, Patent Licensing at Nokia. “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.”

Nokia sued Apple in October alleging that the iPhone infringes on patents for GSM, UMTS and wireless LAN standards, specifically those relating to wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption. Apple vowed to “vigorously” defend the case, and earlier this month filed a countersuit against Nokia alleging that Nokia is infringing 13 of Apple’s patents, announcing the suit in a terse press release that quoted Apple General Counsel and Senior Vice President Bruce Sewell as saying “Other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours.”