Nokia Expands Patent Claims Against Apple With New European Lawsuits

[CFreymarc]

No doubt... I'm curious, How much does it cost to file for a patent and do patent searches? I come up with ideas all the time that I'm sure I could patent myself and then get compensation in the future.

I wonder if anyone has patented vocal communication to a cell phone to change a TV channel?

Let me qualify myself here. I have several patents in my name via various incorporations. Some I partially own. Some I wholly own. Some only my name is on it as "inventor" and I was paid consulting fees. I have been in the patent rodeo many times.

The issue is not having an idea but having a unique implementation of an idea that survives any search for duplicate works. The fees paid for a patent attorney and the application process by patent examiners in Crystal City is where the money goes. In many cases, a patent examiner will do a diligent search in the existing patent archives and a public records search to see if you application is unique. If it passes that process, you are awarded a patent.

However, patents can be challenged if one is sued for infringement. In many cases, a search in public research labs or even museums often comes up with a similar work that was overlooked by the patent examiner. When "the goods are found" to invalidate a patent, many times, both sides quickly settle out of court and very reasonable licensing fee is made. Sometimes this licensing fee will just cover attorney and court fees by the patent holder.

This has been a technique many companies and individuals have done for years. That is, do a design in house and have ones council see if there are any patents covering it. If there is a patent, have council do a prior art search to ready for invalidation of discovered patent. Then go ahead with the design and release of the product.

 

[CFreymarc]

That does seem to be the new way to stay in business

Not new at all. Almost a century ago (shudder!) Detroit was the biggest scene for patent infringement cases with the then about three dozen automotive manufacturing firms suing each other over mechanical design infringements.

Back then and to this day, there are firms that specialize in tear down of new model cars to see if there is anything in the build that may infringe on another car company design. Before that, the nineteenth century had many suits involving agricultural harvesting and process patents.

Nothing is new under the sun.

 

[layte]

Innovate, don't litigate!

Nokia innovated great swathes of current mobile comms technology.

Without Nokia it's a good bet the iPhone would not exist in its current form if at all.

 

[rjohnstone]

Nokia needs to stop crying and move on with life. Innovate, don't litigate!

Last time I checked, Nokia did "innovate", Apple is trying to steal those innovations that Nokia spent millions in R&D creating.

Your catch phrase does not apply.

More like "those who innovate have the right to litigate".

 

[unlinked]

Not new at all. Almost a century ago (shudder!) Detroit was the biggest scene for patent infringement cases with the then about three dozen automotive manufacturing firms suing each other over mechanical design infringements.

Back then and to this day, there are firms that specialize in tear down of new model cars to see if there is anything in the build that may infringe on another car company design. Before that, the nineteenth century had many suits involving agricultural harvesting and process patents.

Nothing is new under the sun.

Back in the day companies in the US used to ignore intellectual property and annoy companies in Europe. Now China does it and annoys Americans. The circle of life continues.

 

[kdarling]

HTC clearly has infringed on Apples right to their Intellectual Property, it's more of a case of HTC grabing for thin air to save it's skin.

Apple sued HTC partly because it was a way of attacking Android, and partly because HTC is probably their greatest threat in the future.

HTC has already shown that they can innovate quite well on their own. Apple could take a lesson from such things as HTC's animations and integration of contacts info.

Apple didn't even ask HTC for license fees first, which at least Nokia did. (Nokia will license their IP, something Apple will not do.)

apparently Apple wasn't given the choice to pay the same fee's as the other mobile companies, Nokia wanted the fee plus access to Apples patents and got told to F off.

The companies paying lesser fees also share their patents. So it stands to reason that if a company doesn't want to share, they have to pay more.

Basically, Apple wants to use everyone else's IP, but share none of their own.

I have seen this time and time again with these types of lawsuit. Someone buys a chip and uses it in their products. They are then sued for infringement when they didn't design it, the chip company did. They will likely get sued as well, but why is the company using that chip being sued, they didn't infringe on the patents.

If you buy a radio chip and install GSM baseband software, you have to pay GSM fees.

The chipmakers only license the patents they need to make their hardware.

Any other company using that chip along with their own radio software (e.g. Apple) must pay license fees for those end usage patents separately.

The radio chips are no different than with CPUs. A CPU maker pays fees for the hardware they incorporate. Any company that buys the CPU and creates a full device from it, must pay fees according to what they've created. For example, you can buy all the parts to make a Mac clone, but that doesn't give you the right to sell one without paying Apple (assuming Apple would allow it).

 

[blahblah100]

HTC clearly has infringed on Apples right to their Intellectual Property, it's more of a case of HTC grabing for thin air to save it's skin. Remember how Palm tried this same no progressive attitude towards Apple, and look where they ended up.



Whoa whoa whoa, stop right their. You have your thinking totally skewed. Nokia clearly is seeking out last alternatives to eliminate Apples growth in the market. Nokia has no viable or clear strategy for it's consumers to enjoy the best possible experience on a phone. So they attack the company that is doing what all phone makers should have been doing.

Nokia has clearly lost touch with what matters most, and that's consumers. Apple on the other hand is a small but resourceful company in comparison to Nokia. Apple cares more about protecting it's Intellectual Property cause Apple fought hard to gain rights to it. Nokia is relying on Europe to save them from Apples crunch into their market share, but Europeans are finally waking up and realizing that Apple is here to liberate them for the tyrants at Nokia.

Apple needs to protect itself and rightly so it should. What has Apple done wrong? They're just a company trying to make insanely great products.

Bruce

This is so out of touch with reality that I'm wondering if even you believe it... If you do, wow. Just, wow.

 

[brewcitywi]

good question

I don't know whether or not Apple infringed on these Nokia patents, but I have a hypothetical question: Just considering the costs, ignoring any issue of principles, is it a reasonable business strategy to knowingly violate patents that might apply to a product you are developing, to avoid up-front licensing costs while risking the cost of legal action and settlements later?

that's a great question, and i was thinking the same thing. to create something like a cellphone, there must be thousands of mirco patents...is apple just steamrolling over them, knowing that some people are going to come out of the woodwork later on?

Or, are the lawsuits just totally meant to sidetrack apple and make them saddled in legal issues?

 

[CylonGlitch]

If you buy a radio chip and install GSM baseband software, you have to pay GSM fees.

The chipmakers only license the patents they need to make their hardware.

Any other company using that chip along with their own radio software (e.g. Apple) must pay license fees for those end usage patents separately.

The radio chips are no different than with CPUs. A CPU maker pays fees for the hardware they incorporate. Any company that buys the CPU and creates a full device from it, must pay fees according to what they've created. For example, you can buy all the parts to make a Mac clone, but that doesn't give you the right to sell one without paying Apple (assuming Apple would allow it).

Depends on the level of integration of the chip. Most of the chips implement specs in hardware. For one big company I implemented Microsoft Chimney specification on the Silicon. Would that mean the company that we sold the chip to would be liable to MS for not licensing the Chimney spec even if there was software needed on their processor to make it run? It is a really gray area, and depends on the patent. In our case, it turned out MS didn't like us implementing it so we had to uniquify it; in other words we changed a few commands to make it incompatible with the spec but basically the same. With a few driver updates anyone could implement the spec but the licensing is on their part.

But the point is, often one company will design something and supply hardware and software to another without informing the latter that they used something they shouldn't have. In the Silicon world, it is VERY common because it is VERY hard to prove someone is violating one of your patents.

 

[CylonGlitch]

that's a great question, and i was thinking the same thing. to create something like a cellphone, there must be thousands of mirco patents...is apple just steamrolling over them, knowing that some people are going to come out of the woodwork later on?

Or, are the lawsuits just totally meant to sidetrack apple and make them saddled in legal issues?

If you ignore patents you can get fined big time; often losing all profits of your products. BUT as I was saying in some additional replies, often the patents are at different levels. Apple doesn't design the chips (ok they purchased the processor but it wasn't their design) buying them from someone else who has already implemented many of the things where patents are involved. But the software patents are very easy to get around; often changing very minor implementation features to make things unique. But still; they play a very hard game of cat and mouse. That is why there are so many lawsuits, each trying to either to get the other to pay or to invalidate the other's claims.

It really is making the lawyers rich; and is really hurting small companies because many of the things we take for granted have someone ready to pounce on you.

One small sound company I worked for used to get sued all the time by patent squatters because they just assumed we were violating their patents and we would roll over and pay them royalties. 99% of the time, they would drop the case if we told them we were going to court because it wasn't worth their efforts. Occasionally; we did go. Never once did we have to pay (besides the lawyers).

 

[Doctor Q]

that's a great question, and i was thinking the same thing. to create something like a cellphone, there must be thousands of mirco patents...is apple just steamrolling over them, knowing that some people are going to come out of the woodwork later on?

Or, are the lawsuits just totally meant to sidetrack apple and make them saddled in legal issues?

We never hear about the patents they did license. The exceptions where they get sued (whether or not the plaintiff eventually prevails) are the squeaky wheels that get all the attention and leave the impression that no big companies are playing fair with patents.

 

[pctomac99]

I don't understand this one. If taken at face value that basically means no touch screen navigation for ANY phone. You would have to use up/down/left/right arrows that you'd click and the page would move a unit in that direction every time you clicked. Why aren't they suing EVERY SINGLE touch screen phone manufacturer because as far as I know...every smartphone phone has wiping gestures to navigate content.

That patent is way to vague, it'd be like patenting a scroll wheel.

No, it's more like putting a patent on a wheel. It aint supposed to be round or go round and round. Pretty dumb, if anything it makes them look like total whiney babies.

 

[Worf]

Anybody else see the Engadget Fandroid comments on this issue? These guys are brainwashed or delusional. I'm sure Apple may be at fault for violation of some of the IPs but really, Apple is the sole reason cell phone manufacturers are suing each other now. Google isn't really much better, just because the OS is licensed for free doesn't mean they can violate Oracle IPs or any other companies.

 

[blahblah100]

Anybody else see the Engadget Fandroid comments on this issue? These guys are brainwashed or delusional. I'm sure Apple may be at fault for violation of some of the IPs but really, Apple is the sole reason cell phone manufacturers are suing each other now. Google isn't really much better, just because the OS is licensed for free doesn't mean they can violate Oracle IPs or any other companies.

So, it's not ok for people to call Apple supporters "fanboys" (they are just 'trolling', right?) but it's ok to call Google supporters "fandroids"?

 

[Worf]

So, it's not ok for people to call Apple supporters "fanboys" (they are just 'trolling', right?) but it's ok to call Google supporters "fandroids"?

When did I ever say that? You missed my point completely.

My point is that their blaming the recent multitude of IP infringement lawsuits solely as Apple's fault is BS. There's multiple reasons for the growing # of lawsuits in the Industry and it just isn't Apple, it's everybody.

 

[Ironduke]

Thats the style Nokia Thats the ****in style!

 

[Steve121178]

I personally haven't seen anyone with a Nokia phone in about 5 years.

Huh? Do you live on Mars? Nokia's are everywhere!

 

[Steve121178]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8C148)

Hey Nokia, how about spending some of that money to make phones that don't suck ass? Might be a better investment.

While Nokia's high-end models can no longer compete with the Android's/iPhone's of this world, Nokia are still the market leader. They sell more handsets per year than anyone else by far! Nokia dominate the low/mid ranges and Nokia have a very strong presence in Europe, Africa & Asia.

It's not all about large touch screens & apps you know. 100's of millions of people buy phones each year just to make calls - strange isn't it?

 

[pimentoLoaf]

I personally haven't seen anyone with a Nokia phone in about 5 years. Any time I see Nokia's name anymore is online regarding a lawsuit they're filing.

Move to Milwaukee, WI. Nearly everyone seems to own one.

 

[TurnerMan]

This just in:

"Nokia is filing suit against the human and ape populations. In 1902, they filed a patent involving picking boogers from a nose with an index or pinky finger. Updates to follow."

 

[rdowns]

This just in:

"Nokia is filing suit against the human and ape populations. In 1902, they filed a patent involving picking boogers from a nose with an index or pinky finger. Updates to follow."

With gems like this, you should post more often.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Huh? Do you live on Mars? Nokia's are everywhere!

Not in the US. The poster you quoted lives in the US and Nokia just does not have much traction here. Very few of their smart phones are sold here. They make quite a few of your feature phones (aka dumb phones) but not many of our smart phones.

I know everywhere else in the world Nokia phones are very popular.

 

[TurnerMan]

With gems like this, you should post more often.

Apparently it was just as rediculous as some of Nokia's lawsuits. I post when I want, but thanks for the request.

 

[SiPat]

Wasn't the Newton the first true PDA? And do Palm Pilot's not count? I haven't seen one Nokia product (until recently) that didn't require a keypad to operate -- even the Communicator series which I must admit were damn good.

 

[Femto]

This may be the patent

Folks, let's put things in perspective. While I am not 100%, I think this is the UK wipe gesture patent in the mix:

http://v3.espacenet.com/publication..._gb&FT=D&date=19961127&CC=GB&NR=2301217A&KC=A

If so, it has good claims and good spec. And given the publication date in 1996, the filing date would have been like 1995 or 1994. Let's also bear in mind that the origins of Symbian are actually in touch screen based Psion handhled computer from the early 1990s. I recall Ericsson had the swipe gesture deployed in phones in 2001 and 2002 already. As to when Nokia first had commercial products with the feature out, I dunno as I never had their products.