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If Apple is infringing (and it looks like at least some of their products are) I hope they get smacked down.

It's hard to say what the nature of the infringement is, if it was malicious or not (not that it matters a whole lot in the courts except for damages). Odds are that either Apple's lawyers screwed up on their patent search, or Nokia and Apple have been discussing the payment options for the patent licenses for awhile now (i.e. years). Something broke down after the iPhone hit the market, and Nokia decided it was time to take it to the courts and away from the negotiation table.

Now, if it is the case that negotiations started on the ramp up to launch, and then fell apart after the iPhone launched for some other reason, it's still infringement, and Apple can be smacked down for it. In that case, it really takes full knowledge of the details to understand who was behaving ethically and fairly, and to what extent they were behaving ethically or fairly.

We can't rule out the case that neither one is really being more evil than the other, but simply couldn't come to an agreement on what the price should be.
 
IF nokia do win (and I hope they do), I wonder how long it'd take for them to do the same in the EU...

TBH they'll settle out of court, Nokia will get some cash and Apple can sell their iPhones.
 
Apple owns a tons of patents around interfacing with the iPods/iPhones, touch screens, etc...

That's true only for the US and only for "design patents" but not for "technological patents" which is a big difference. Most of the iPhone related patents is just how it looks but not how it works. On the other hand Nokia has tons of technological patents in the US.

To best of my knowledge Apple also wasn't granted its patent for the iPhone in Europe for which they applied in 2004. Unlike in the US the EU patent office checks if every patent application contains some new state of the art technology. In Europe there were at least two other granted patents that included a touchscreen phone. One was by Sony and one was by HP IIRC. I read an interview back in 2007 with a guy from the European patents office in which he said that he was quite sceptical if the iPhone patent application contains a new, "state of the art" device description. So far no patent has been granted to Apple in the EU regarding the iPhone.
 
That's true only for the US and only for "design patents" but not for "technological patents" which is a big difference. Most of the iPhone related patents is just how it looks but not how it works. On the other hand Nokia has tons of technological patents in the US.

To best of my knowledge Apple also wasn't granted its patent for the iPhone in Europe for which they applied in 2004. Unlike in the US the EU patent office checks if every patent application contains some new state of the art technology. In Europe there were at least two other granted patents that included a touchscreen phone. One was by Sony and one was by HP IIRC. I read an interview back in 2007 with a guy from the European patents office in which he said that he was quite sceptical if the iPhone patent application contains a new, "state of the art" device description. So far no patent has been granted to Apple in the EU regarding the iPhone.

In the US they are called "utility," not "technological" patents. And Apple has many utility patents and applications that cover the operation, not just the design, of the phone and its other products.

Also, you are incorrect - the USPTO does check if every patent application claims something new and nonobvious.
 
Also, you are incorrect - the USPTO does check if every patent application claims something new and nonobvious.
That is what they are supposed to do but they have frequently awarded patents which had clear prior art or was completely obvious.
 
That is what they are supposed to do but they have frequently awarded patents which had clear prior art or was completely obvious.

Yes, but so have the various european patent offices. My point is only that the examination procedures are similar.
 
Also, you are incorrect - the USPTO does check if every patent application claims something new and nonobvious.

But claiming something new and nonobvious is completely different to actually being new and nonobvious. The USPTO doesn't check if it violates any other patent like it's done in the EU.

I remember when we did some patent application in the US and I was worried if it might violate some other patents and our lawyer just told us: "Oh no problem, I will just describe it in a different matter." In the EU something like this is not possible at all.

Plus "first to file" rule isn't used for US patents IIRC.
 
You have said all of that completely missing what caused this fiasco to begin with, Apple not paying for the tech that Nokia helped develop.

Nokia haven't done this on a whim, they got done over by Apple and Apple are now under pressure from a company that heleped develop and mature modern mobile communication.

Why do people keep forgetting the reason this all started? :confused:

Nokia were demanding unfair royalties AND cross licensing of Apple patents. Apple told Nokia to bugger off. Since the iPhone launched Nokia has been in a downward spiral and their profits have dropped 50%.

Nokia cannot afford the R & D to get a product out there with a strong OS and hardware to compete in the market so they thought, sod it, Apple make phones and have all these cool multi touch patents and OS interface patents. If we sue them then we can get cash and design patents woooot!!

Apple were looking to pay a similar license fee to Nokia that they pay to other license holders (Apple have license deals with hundreds of other companies in relation to Apple products, so this is not new to them). Nokia were bleeding money so looked to Apple as a super cash cow from god and wanted to milk em dry.
 
Nokia were demanding unfair royalties AND cross licensing of Apple patents. Apple told Nokia to bugger off. Since the iPhone launched Nokia has been in a downward spiral and their profits have dropped 50%.

Nokia cannot afford the R & D to get a product out there with a strong OS and hardware to compete in the market so they thought, sod it, Apple make phones and have all these cool multi touch patents and OS interface patents. If we sue them then we can get cash and design patents woooot!!

Apple were looking to pay a similar license fee to Nokia that they pay to other license holders (Apple have license deals with hundreds of other companies in relation to Apple products, so this is not new to them). Nokia were bleeding money so looked to Apple as a super cash cow from god and wanted to milk em dry.

And given the current patent system Nokia is within their rights to demand whatever they want. You're argument should not be against Nokia, but against the current patent system.

From what I've read, Apples patents on multi-touch make it very hard to do multi-touch any other way. That's why Nokia wants a cross licensing deal. Remember that Apple is protected by the same patent laws and regs that Nokia is using to protect their IP.

Don't blame Nokia though, this is how the game has been set up to play unless the patent system itself is somehow changed.
 
And given the current patent system Nokia is within their rights to demand whatever they want.

Actually, they're not. Since they submitted their patents into a standards body to be used in promulgating standards, and since the standards body requires it, they must demand fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory rates. This is not "whatever Nokia want."
 
In other words this is a hissy fight from Nokia... It's making them look bad all over, because something Apple has over the rest is their apparent "Charisma" towards people, and people in the end are the ones who buy the product.

It's only making Nokia look bad among Apple-Fanboys and Apple-Apologists.

Fact is, Nokia has patents that Apple isn't paying for. Nokia has a right to be paid for them, whether they're struggling or not (or struggling more/less than the global economy in general). Dismissing it as "Nokia is just hard up for cash and patent trolling" is, frankly, stupid. It shows that the speaker is just a fanboy with a worthless opinion.

Neither Apple nor Nokia has said that this is a recent issue (ie. since the iPhone's continued dominating success). It's been clearly stated these negotiations go back to the very beginning, when it was just an early success (or possibly even before it was fully released). Nokia was doing well, the iPhone wasn't yet sure to be a long term, cross-market success. This isn't about sour grapes, and anyone with functional brain cells knows that.

The underlying snag appears to be "Nokia wants a patent sharing agreement, Apple doesn't; without that, Nokia wants more money than Apple wants to pay". It's NOT clear whether or not Nokia wants MORE than the fair/non-discriminatory price. Just that they want more than Apple is willing to pay. Apple isn't contesting that they're using Nokia patents, nor that they own Nokia _some_ amount of money, so stop painting this as "Nokia has nothing". They have something, or Apple's replies wouldn't be "they're asking for too much". They would, instead, be "nokia's patents are bogus" or "nokia has no such patents" or "nokia is just harassing us and patent trolling" or "see, this is what's wrong with the patent system".

Everyone who is not a fanboy nor apologist (for one side or the other) recognizes that this is a real case with actual merits (possibly on both sides), and it's not yet clear who has more merit, and who is going to win. Further, they know that there are no white hats nor black hats here, just two equally grey hats, each with self interests and trying to pressure the other side to bend to their individual (and selfish) will.

Which is a long winded way of saying: until you fanboys are ready to stop viewing the world through your heavily tinted glasses, the only people who "look bad allover" are you.
 
Nokia were demanding unfair royalties

What is the royalty that Nokia has demanded?
What is the royalty that is "fair" to the industry?
What are the royalties that other device makers are paying for the same patents?
 
Nokia will get some cash and Apple can sell their iPhones.

In the long run, it's best for both companies if Apple continues to sell their products. The questions are "how much of that revenue does Nokia get?", "how bad is it for Apple if they hold to not doing a patent sharing agreement?", and "will they decide that it's less pain to share or not share?"

At this point, it seems that the courts will be deciding what those pain points will be, and whether or not a patent sharing agreement is even on the table.

Just have to wait and see. Will Nokia's current tactic work? Will it put enough pressure on Apple to get them to play ball? Will it backfire on them?

It doesn't actually matter to me which company wins, aside from wanting to see the existing laws properly and fairly enforced. That might mean Apple gets kicked in the (patent) nads, or it might mean Nokia does. Either way, neither company is going to fold over it.
 
Nokia has strong grounds on the GSM patents.

I agree with strong hardware patents.. but software patents that cover such a broad range are unjust.

Anyhow, both Nokia and Apple are big companies, and both have ammo to fire. Can see the Apple complying with the royalties for the GSM patents agreed as long as they don't include all of the iPhone patents.

Big game of chess now - and Apple really isn't in a good position to start bargaining.
 
Nokia has strong grounds on the GSM patents.

I agree with strong hardware patents.. but software patents that cover such a broad range are unjust.

Anyhow, both Nokia and Apple are big companies, and both have ammo to fire. Can see the Apple complying with the royalties for the GSM patents agreed as long as they don't include all of the iPhone patents.

Big game of chess now - and Apple really isn't in a good position to start bargaining.

Many seem to not notice (or ignore) that it's actually Apple who needs touchscreen related patents from Nokia. Not the other way around.
 
quotes Apple CEO Steve Jobs as having claimed that the company has "always been shameless about stealing great ideas."

Isn't this quote from Steve Jobs about 25 years old? I think it is older than the quote in my sig...



No, this is from 1996 when Jobs was in charge of NeXT, Inc. It was in reference to the Macintosh platform and how its development used ideas from Apple employees who were 'musicians, poets, artists', etc. and who also happened to be the best computer engineers in the industry. Nokia completely took the statement out of context.

Whereas the Nokia executive said of Nokia 'if there is something good in the world, we copy with pride', which is completely different.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU

No, this is from 1996 when Jobs was in charge of NeXT, Inc. It was in reference to the Macintosh platform and how its development used ideas from Apple employees who were 'musicians, poets, artists', etc. and who also happened to be the best computer engineers in the industry. Nokia completely took the statement out of context.

Whereas the Nokia executive said of Nokia 'if there is something good in the world, we copy with pride', which is completely different.

Yes. It's completely different. The two statements mean the same thing, but it's different. Because if Apple/NeXT/Steve do it, it's ok. But lord forbid anyone does it TO Apple/NeXT/Steve. That's just WRONG.
 
Yes. It's completely different. The two statements mean the same thing, but it's different. Because if Apple/NeXT/Steve do it, it's ok. But lord forbid anyone does it TO Apple/NeXT/Steve. That's just WRONG.

Did you even read my comment or watch the video? Jobs was saying what made the Apple Macintosh great was that they incorporated great ideas from Apple (their own) employees and they did so because these people were poets, artists, etc. He references exposing oneself to the best things that man has done.

The Nokia quote basically says that Nokia copies with pride when external companies make something good.

Those are completely different and Jobs' was taken out of context. Also, claiming the Apple fan boy crap is quite tiresome and baseless.
 
And given the current patent system Nokia is within their rights to demand whatever they want. You're argument should not be against Nokia, but against the current patent system.

From what I've read, Apples patents on multi-touch make it very hard to do multi-touch any other way. That's why Nokia wants a cross licensing deal. Remember that Apple is protected by the same patent laws and regs that Nokia is using to protect their IP.

Don't blame Nokia though, this is how the game has been set up to play unless the patent system itself is somehow changed.

Multi-touch is not an international standard. GSM is. Nokia are abusing the fact that they hold patents for an international standard. This is more similar to when British Telecom tried to sue ISP's because British Telecom held patents covering the World Wide Web.

If Apple is successful in countersuing Nokia because of the way they feel Nokia is abusing its position Nokia could lose the rights to any fees at all for their GSM patents from all manufacturers of handsets.
 
This can't be their biggest complaint since Apple acknowledge that Nokia offered licensing based on $$$ only not once but twice....

Yes, but in their countersuit, Apple summarized their complaint this way:

"In dealing with Apple, Nokia has sought to gain an unjust competitive advantage over Apple by charging unwarranted fees to use patents that alledgedly cover industry compatibility standards and by seeking to obtain access to Apple's intellectual property."

From what I've read, Apples patents on multi-touch make it very hard to do multi-touch any other way. That's why Nokia wants a cross licensing deal.

This myth keeps popping up. What multi-touch patents? The UI patents that could affect anyone else are limited ones on scrolling and rubber banding, which could be gotten around via alternative methods.

Nokia would be far more interested in day-to-day patents such as ones for conserving battery, identifying a device on serials ports on bootup, etc.
 
He references exposing oneself to the best things that man has done.

Which is, essentially, what Nokia was saying. Expose yourself to the best things other people do, learn what they did right, and copy the ideas (but not the expressions), incorporate them into what you do.

Apple has done no different. The key components of the Macintosh and iPod were both taken from previous (external) developers/developments. They learned what was valuable about GUIs, networks, pointing devices, etc., they copied the ideas, and incorporated them into what they do. The Macintosh wouldn't have existed without the ideas they copied from Xerox. And, even the iPod's UI is "just a miller column browser", which came from the Xanadu project (and was copied by NeXT, and then the iPod -- it even exists in Mac OS X, as the column mode in Finder; the only difference for the iPod is that it's limited to viewing 1 column at a time).

The Nokia quote basically says that Nokia copies with pride when external companies make something good.

Name a major company that doesn't. Apple wouldn't be where they are today if they hadn't "copied with pride" from multiple Xerox projects.

Also, claiming the Apple fan boy crap is quite tiresome and baseless.

It may be tiresome, but it is far from baseless. As you've just shown. And it's probably not half as tiresome as having to read the same old Apple fanboy saws over and over again while trying to find the one or two kernels of wisdom in these threads.
 
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