Nokia Files Charges Against Apple Over Patent Dispute

Nokia was the leading telecommunications and information technology company before Apple and other brands came to rise

Finland-based Nokia Corporation accused Apple, the maker of now famous iPhone, of violating 32 technology patents, on Wednesday.

It was following Apple’s lawsuit filed on Tuesday against Acacia Research Corporation and Conversant Intellectual Property Management Incorporated for allegedly conspiring with Nokia to extract and extort exorbitant revenues unfairly and anti-competitively from Apple.

Nokia filed its lawsuits in three courts in Germany including the ones in Dusseldorf, Mannheim and Munich and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

Nokia vs Apple
Nokia was the leading telecommunications and information company before Apple came to rise.

The charges covered patents for displays, user interfaces, software, antennas, chipsets and video coding.

Nokia said in a statement that since agreeing a license which covers some patents from portfolio of the Nokia Technologies in 2011, Apple has declined subsequent offers made by the Finland-based company to license other of its patented inventions which are now being used by many of the products of Apple.

The two companies were locked in a series of legal battles between 2009 and 2011 over the patents for the technology they used in the mobile phones they sell in the market all over the world.

During that time, Nokia was considered the leading mobile phone maker in the world, but was being rapidly overtaken by the rise of iPhone produced by Apple.

Later, the two companies’s disputes were later settled, with Apple making an undisclosed one-off payment, and making further royalty payments to use the technology of Nokia.

Apple accused of patent infringement
Nokia accused Apple of patent infringement.

In 2014, Nokia eventually sold its mobile phone business to Microsoft. Meanwhile, it has concentrated on developing its mobile network equipment business by acquiring its French-American rival Alcatel-Lucent.

Nokia said the three companies, including its 2013 full acquisition of joint venture Nokia Siemens Networks, united to represent more than 115 billion euros of R and D investment, with a massive portfolio of tens of thousands of patents.

Earlier this year, Nokia said it would ren-enter the mobile phone industry by licensing its technology and brand name to a new Finish firm named HMD, which is making the Nokia-branded phones again.

As of this writing, either of Apple and Acacia had not responded to requests for a comment in connection to the latest legal dispute they are into.

According to the spokesman of Nokia, the lawsuit they are into is not related to their own complaints against Apple, adding that when Apple failed to agree to terms, it is seeking an unfair advantage over their other licenses and their filing of charges is a way of taking steps to protect their inventions and defend their rights.

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