Legal News

With New Filing, Nokia Ramps up Patent War Against Apple

By Ashby Jones

Over the past 10 years, Apple has outpaced just about everyone, including Nokia, with its string of wildly successful products. First came the iPod, then the iPhone. And now the iPad has got the masses queuing up.

But these days, the company is fighting a less visible but no less important challenge from the rear-guard over, yes, its patents. And the foe leading the way is Nokia.

On Tuesday, Nokia announced that it has filed an additional complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission alleging that Apple has infringed Nokia patents “in virtually all of its products,” escalating a series of patent battles between the two. Click here for the WSJ story.

The filing follows a ruling made last week by a U.S. trade panel in favor of Apple in a patent dispute that has been going on since late 2009. The panel found that the technology used in Apple’s iPhones and iPods don’t infringe on the Finnish cellphone maker’s patents. Repping Apple: WilmerHale’s Bill Lee. Repping Nokia: Alston & Bird’s Paul Brinkman.

Nokia said it doesn’t agree with the commission’s initial determination and said it is “waiting to see the full details of the ruling” before deciding on the next steps in that case.

The commission will have 60 days to decide whether to adopt or review the decision.

The new complaint relates to seven Nokia patents that Nokia said “are now being used by Apple to create key features in its products in the areas of multitasking operating systems, data synchronization, positioning, call quality and the use of Bluetooth accessories.”

“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,” said Paul Melin, Nokia’s vice president of intellectual property.

Apple wasn’t immediately available to comment on the new suit.

The latest ITC filing means Nokia has 46 patents in suit against Apple. In addition to the two ITC complaints, Nokia has filed cases on the same patents in the U.S., U.K., the Netherlands and Germany.

The dispute between Apple and the world’s largest mobile phone maker by sales has heated up since Nokia first claimed that the iPhone had violated 10 patents in late 2009. Nokia followed up with additional claims against the iPad, and Apple has countersued.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 29, 2011 (boomark / email).