More Patent Warfare Troubles Mobile Market: Nokia, Apple and Beyond
After Kodak dug up gold mines in filing suits on patent infringements against mobile companies and sucking royalties worth millions of dollars from LG, Samsung and so on, the trend is now taking off. Nokia has now filed a second suit on patent infringement against Apple “in virtually all of its products [i.e. phones, portable music players and computers].” Nokia has now 46 patents in litigation with Apple, such as technologies such as multitasking operating systems, data synchronization, positioning, call quality and the use of Bluetooth accessories.
“Our latest ITC filing means we now have 46 Nokia patents in suit against Apple, many filed more than 10 years before Apple made its first iPhone,” said Paul Melin, Vice President, Intellectual Property at Nokia. “Nokia is a leading innovator in technologies needed to build great mobile products and Apple must stop building its products using Nokia’s proprietary innovation.”
During the last two decades, Nokia has invested approximately EUR 43 billion in research and development and built one of the wireless industry’s strongest and broadest IPR portfolios, with over 10,000 patent families. Nokia is a world leader in the development of handheld device and mobile communications technologies, which is also demonstrated by Nokia’s strong patent position.
Apple is momentarily facing hits by all sides as last week Kodak’s legal battle against Apple ended this time with the former’s victory. The war is not finished yet, but the stakes are high, seeking around $1 billion from Apple and its device manufacturers. Just as in Kodak’s case, many view Nokia as a former leader that wants to draw attention back to itself, and former glory. It is well known that the company has not been doing very well in the last couple of years, due to the developments in smartphones and other mobile devices, by courtesy of Apple and Google.
Nokia has bet all its money on Microsoft, seeing in the latter a savior. The company reported a 21% decrease in profits in the fourth quarter of 2010, and at the moment a decrease in stock market shares. Nokia is heavily relying on Microsoft and Windows Phone 7 at the moment, the companies having recently sealed the deal with a yet unofficially announced $1 billion exchange of money from Microsoft for Nokia developing and promoting Windows phones.
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