Nokia brings Apple patent fight to the ITC, says most Apple products infringe

Looks like Nokia's pulling all the stops in its patent fight with Apple: in addition to the already-filed lawsuit, the Finnish company has now filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission, alleging that "virtually all" of Apple's products infringe one of seven patents covering user interfaces, cameras, antennas, and power management. Ouch. Of course, this is a pretty standard tactic as far as major patent disputes go -- this is just a second front of the same war, and we'd expect Apple to lodge an ITC complaint of its own in due time. What could make this interesting is the ITC's power to ban imports of infringing products in relatively short order, so we'll be keeping a close eye on this one.

[zenomatic Posted Dec 29th 2009 7:02PM]

@(Unverified)
Fanboi much?
Nokia phones sell well in the 3rd world (though Samsung is a tough competitor to Nokia there). Nokia's so-called smartphones are horrible industrial chunks with dreadful user experience and even worse performance. The N900 and Maemo are a step forward, but iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, and Android-based phones have a huge head start. And in case you haven't been following the news lately: Apple has surpassed Nokia in sales volume, Android's market share is going up fast (it has been predicted that Android will be #2 smartphone platform in the coming years).

[ounkeo Posted Dec 29th 2009 8:57PM]

@zenomatic
... so let's see, Nokia has about 1 billion phones out per year and Apple suddenly outsells Nokia? Sorry I don't see the math.

And as for usability, you are completely wrong! S40 devices are extremely easy to use and in fact, there are no mobile phone UI's out now that can compete with the use-case usability of the S40 devices.

Even S60 devices like the E71/E72 are better designed for mobility than even Apple's iPhone UI. Get a clue. Even in terms of usability and ease of use, my N97 with S60 (2.0) is much more practical and usable than the iPhone. Just because it isn't glitzy and "fun" to operate doesn't mean it's got a bad UI.

Just a clue also, Android is still a blip on the radar and are still feature-unfinished software. Let's not even bring them up. And about your "predictions"... Let's just say that for the last 3 years since iPhone launched, analysts and "experts" have been predicting RIM a quick death and even "expert advice" has told people RIM is in a bad place with fast-falling market share and not a good company to invest in.

Guess what? RIM has been growing STRONGLY and there was even a recent post on engadget how surprised they were at how well RIM was doing.

People also predicted that Apple would completely overtake Nokia in marketshare in year 1 of iphone launch. They also sad Nokia phone divisioon would be dead last year. The reality is, Nokia is still king and they aren't just alive; they are actually doing very well in the face of competition from the low and high end markets. Their volume dropped from 1.1 billion phones to 1 billion phones but they are still making out very well.

You might not like Nokia and they certainly aren't my favorite phone maker, but if you are objective, you'd see that Nokia is doing well in the face of such stiff competition from all fronts. Their phone division certainly isn't suffering in any way. It's their network division and a non-performing purchase in that division that has been hurting them.

Apple certainly isn't the top dog or even close to being it yet and by all accounts of the way people hype it up, they should have been top dog a year ago but still aren't. Even RIM, predicted to be dead already, is outdoing Apple atm. Let's not get into profits. Apple has a different business model from other manufacturers and much of their money comes from pre-sales to operators and percent profits on each service plan in use; something other phone manufacturers can't leverage on.

[MarkAnderson Posted Dec 30th 2009 2:44AM]

@zenomatic

Actually I can virtually guarantee this is about cross liscencing. Multitouch is the obvious target.

[mtnDewFTW Posted Dec 29th 2009 6:01PM]

Wait a second. So, Nokia would rather spend more time and money doing useless things like this that essentially won't matter to the public's eye, unless you're a die hard Nokia fan.
Why not actually make some good phones for a change?

[Iceen Posted Dec 29th 2009 6:39PM]

@mtnDewFTW

I would say they have one hell of a phone out rigth now and have a hole new idea for mobile phones thats completly the oposite to apple. Maemo Open source Linux os. The N900 wich Im using at the moment. Every friend how has tried it has been excited.
It feels a little bit like apple vs MS in the 80s and we all now how that ended. Apple doing the same now as they did then.

[Tes Posted Dec 29th 2009 7:14PM]

@mtnDewFTW

Yeah, because in the real world, when lawyers are working for a company, said company shuts down their factories, stops taking phone calls and sends thousands of staff to the lawyers office to watch them work.

Or in the totally fantasy world I live in they keep working as usual while some lawyer who never sets foot near their operations does everything from his building hundreds of miles away via courier carried documents and FAX.

[Huffman Posted Dec 29th 2009 6:05PM]

@(Unverified)

Did i hit a nerve then, I'm sorry i didn't know apple was the be all and end all of technology, Maybe that's why i'm a few hundred quid better off and your a moron, Glue sniffing wow hilarious did you learn that one in 1st grade you need to upgrade your trash talk.
Well how about this, Have you ever thought the world doesn't revolve around you and what you think, It's an "open" Discussion not a playground crew so you can't just bully people out, I don't see Apple owners only on the membership so get a grip.
Apple are like the tesco of technology just takes aload of ideas puts em into one and then crushes all the smaller competition who done all the hard work.

[MactasticMendez Posted Dec 29th 2009 6:10PM]

@Steve Jobs CEO why dont you just buy them im sure you can afford it with that $20billion. im sure with your iphone as competition they cant be worth to much these days

[d0mth0ma5 Posted Dec 29th 2009 6:15PM]

@MactasticMendez $47 Billion based on Market Capitalisation

[blade235 Posted Dec 29th 2009 6:54PM]

@MactasticMendez I dont think they have 20 billion dollars in cash and if they do, that have to be dumbest thing to do, keeping cash....Besides in 6 years ago 20 billion dollars was worth 20 billion euros, now more like 13 billion euros. Guess what it will be worth in 5 years from now?

[gadgeteer63 Posted Dec 29th 2009 7:05PM]

All the money spent on patent lawsuits over the past few years would feed a lot of homeless people :/

[MisterK Posted Dec 29th 2009 7:06PM]

This is how the game is played by everyone (including Apple Inc). I'm a huge Apple fan, but fair is fair and if they are going to be in this space and sue other people, then they should be prepared for the same treatment.

I think Nokia does need to rethink their business model, though. I know they still have the lead, but I don't know if it can hold forever. As people get more money, they may look to a brand with more compelling flagship devices. And despite the impressive bullet list of features on Nokia phones, they don't demo as well as iPhone, Blackberry, MS, Palm, and Android phones. Apple may, in a couple years, release a version of their first iPhone (without camera) fully subsidized. It' only software and the hardware is getting cheaper and cheaper.

I was recently in Finland and they depend on Nokia like water. 70% of Finland's revenue comes from Nokia. If they don't keep up with new tech and the wow factor, Finland could be in some serious trouble.

[leipzig Posted Dec 29th 2009 9:11PM]

@MisterK

Thats pretty much not true what you say about the Nokia revenue. I'm finnish myself and I'm following these news with great interest; but that is mostly because of the stocks I own. On 90's there were financial crisis a lot worse for Finland than the current is, and for really fast recovery from that we can say big thanks to the company.

Anyways nowadays we can say that finnish economy has a good stand and it does not really lean on Nokia anymore. It still gives great incomes as taxes and is a big employer here, but its not really needed to rely on. Nokia even threatened that they might leave Finland last spring as they wanted to pass a law the government was processing (it was about how on cybercrime investigation it is allowed to explore where employees have sent their emails (not whats written on mail, secrecy of correspondence law is pretty strict in here)).

Commenting to the matter, what i believe is that we will never see any judgements from these lawsuits and in a year or couple they will reach somekind of agreement. As for those who ask why these lawsuits come so late, I can say that in business world this Sue-First-Think-Later system is not valid, and suing is definitely the last option available after years of negotiation that didnt come in conclusion, for BOTH companies. Propably still nokia and apple both know that if they want to end this in court it might take so long time that the technology is maybe not even useful anymore, and what most likely they will find a peace for using eachothers patent's legally before that (with some money going way or another).

ps. sorry for spelling

[MisterK Posted Dec 29th 2009 9:26PM]

@leipzig My apologies. I really should have fact checked. Our tour guide in Finland gave us that 70% figure and I shouldn't have taken such a large figure at their word. That said, I did go to Wikipedia and at least the basis of my argument about Nokia's importance in Finland was correct:

"Nokia plays a very large role in the economy of Finland; it is by far the largest Finnish company, accounting for about a third of the market capitalization of the Helsinki Stock Exchange"
"...accounted for almost a quarter of Finland's exports in 2003"

Despite my best efforts ;) , it is difficult to overstate Nokia's importance to Finland and if, for any reason, Nokia was to vanish, Finland would be devastated. Not that I think Nokia is going anywhere.

[d0mth0ma5 Posted Dec 29th 2009 7:07PM]

@blade235 They do indeed have $20 Billion, it's been steadily increasing in recent years. I assume they keep it for bidding wars with Google over mergers and acquisitions.

[Bjay Posted Dec 29th 2009 8:29PM]

Apple is going down on this one....mark my words. On that note.....I didnt hear any iSlate rumors today, watz up Engadget

[Munk Posted Dec 29th 2009 9:15PM]

@Kamokazi I'm all for freedom of speech and ribbing on people but targeting someones health is low.
Whatever you think of the persona, he is a human with a family who suffered serious health issues that could have been fatal and could inflict you or a loved one in the future.

Lets keep that in mind shall we?

[typhon Posted Dec 29th 2009 9:44PM]

i think sony should do like this with apple , and even samsung and ....
this cause to tear down the apple haha

[Kamokazi Posted Dec 29th 2009 9:58PM]

@Munk

I know I've seen several late night talk show hosts and others poke fun at people's ailments and deaths immediately following or during the incident. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions on whether or not it is acceptable, but due to the number of examples I would say society in general has pretty much determined it is, as long as the audience is mature enough to underst...oh, my bad, I see your point.

[vicks Posted Dec 29th 2009 10:20PM]

I thought the point of these suits goes back to how all the mobile phone companies operate. Basically, they share patents between themselves paying reduced royalties to each other and all sharing in advancements in new tech/standards while agreeing new standards. This process had included Apple up until last year when they then found themselves being discriminated against by Nokia who began demanding inflated license fees (only from Apple). Theory being that Nokia hoped to pressure Apple into giving up access to their 'ringfenced' tech in addition to the previous shared pool. The 'between the lines story' being that Apple were welcomed to the table by the other mobile guys right up until they realised how many cool toys Apple had in the Jesus phone that weren't being shared. I wouldn't be surprised if Nokia were the point of a spear being held by many hands. Not that Apple are babes in the wood here but there is no denying the iPhone skull-fcked a lot of manufactures timetables for product rollout continued marketshare and the patent, royalty sharing, circle-jerk.

[zenomatic Posted Dec 29th 2009 11:30PM]

@ounkeo
1bn phones? I thought we were talking about smartphones, not ALL phones.
And usability, well, the Symbian UI is a total mess: it's ugly and the response time is awful, looks and feels like Windows 3.1. I find it quite amusing the you present the S40 as some sort of a role model for UIs when the iPhone OS has actually set the standard for others to follow, and Android OS is quite close to the iPhone OS. Try surfing the web using the iPhone, an Android device and a Nokia phone. The first two excel while the latter fails.

Android.
How exactly is Android a "blip on the radar"? Android's market share grew from 0% to 4% in a year while Symbian lost over 5% during the same period. Moto DROID sold over 100,000 in first weekend. And with all the hot Android phones already on the market and more coming out next year combined with the open nature of Android, favourable marketing, and the superb Android Market (vis-à-vis the Ovi Store which has been a complete disaster) I don't see any reason why Android's market share would go anywhere but up. You also said that Android's features are unfinished, care to expand on that?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2JH_q0zR7w

You asserted that Nokia is doing well. How well are they really doing when they are already closing their retail stores and firing Symbian developers in Salo, Finland?

I used to like Nokia many years ago when they were actually innovating and creating reliable phones. The new smartphone craze spearheaded by the iPhone (with Android following close) caught Nokia completely off guard (confirmed by both OPK and Vanjoki of Nokia).

Sorry for not dealing with all your points, time has its limits.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10651112/1/rim-outselling-nokia-in-europe.html
http://www.edibleapple.com/nokia-still-top-dog-but-iphone-marketshare-and-sales-volume-continue-to-grow-at-an-impressive-rate/

[sdf632 Posted Dec 30th 2009 2:48AM]

@zenomatic

I've used/owned all three of the devices mentioned actually: iPhone, Android and S60.

It's not nearly as simple as you put it. Each system and device has its niche. I used iPhone first; it was well-designed certainly but far too dependent on Apple proprietary technology. Like leasing a car; it's not really yours, you just get to pay to borrow it.

Android was great, but its definitely a work in progress. This will probably change significantly with newer versions, but for now, it definitely is in Google's typical beta-esque status.

I just moved on to S60, which is definitely the most mature of all the platforms. This phone, unlike the other two, has never crashed on me and gives me a degree of freedom that an iPhone user would be amazed at. In addition, it also has one major advantage that the other two are far from having: battery life. Unlike Android or iPhone, my Nokia can easily make it through 2 or 3 days with heavy usage. The other two platforms are lucky to survive a day. How do I know this so well? Because I realized that I had stocked up on multiple chargers for multiple locations for both phones. Ultimately, as nice as the devices were, battery life was what led me to S60.

At the end of the day, its really more analogous to car shopping than anything. You can buy the Prius or the BMW or the Civic as you want, but keep in mind these serve very different purposes.

[MarkAnderson Posted Dec 30th 2009 2:49AM]

@zenomatic

You might want to look at the EMEA phone sales before you start posting utter pish about RIM outselling Nokia in Europe.

Android will take it's share, of that I have no doubt, but let's keep our feet on planet Earth, ok?

[Jack Posted Dec 30th 2009 3:43AM]

@sdf632

Owning an iPhone is like leasing a car? Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds? Saying it's dependent on proprietary technology is ignorant at best. Have you seen the list of audio and video formats it can play? How is that even close to being proprietary? Safari is based on webkit, how is that proprietary?

And if you're bitching that the apps it uses are proprietary, that's just plain stupid. Are S60 apps not proprietary? WinMo apps? Android apps? Yes, guess what - Android apps only work in Android. OMG PROPRIETARY. Seriously, out of all the valid complaints you could have had about the iPhone, you chose none of them and instead made up some very stupid complaints that are easily dismissible by anybody with half a brain.

You should probably try again.

[ounkeo Posted Dec 30th 2009 4:56AM]

@Jack
The analogy is that different devices serve different tastes, preferences and use-cases.

S60 apps can be of different varieties. Remember that Symbian phones and even S40 phones can also run java programs, of which there are many. S40 phones are more than "basic" phones. They are smartphones, if you want them to be, and highly customisable. Their only real negative is low processor/ram/screens to justify their $60 non contract price. I have an S40 I use as my home phone line and the only real difference between that and my smartphones is processor speed/ram/screen size.

@zenomatic

S40 and S60 devices are simply better designed for the use-case of mobility than the touchscreen UI's. This will be a long discussion so we can't really get into it here. Suffice to say that ALL modern touchscreen phones suffer from lack of basic mobile usability. Remember that mobility is not about beiing able to heft your device somewhere to use it. It is being able to efficiently use it while on-the-go. S40 and S60 devices simply were better designed for that all-in-one package, efficient, truly mobile and highly reliabile.

I have used the iPhone and its vaunted usability is simply missing too many of the basic, key usability rules in favor of flash and fanfair.

Android is still a minor player which is why i would rather not discuss them in too great a length. It still *is* an in-development platform and all reviews have stated as much due to missing, too-basic features. I have no doubt that Android, being device agnostic, will continue to grow.

Consider that maybe Symbian "losing" market share has a lot more to do with the overall mobile phone market growing. Nokia's market share did slip a couple % but overall this was due to RIM, Apple and considerable competition from the lower end markets. With that much competition, Nokia is doing well for a company that is under fire from all sides and receiving as much negative press as it has in the western media.

I do not consider closing of flagship stores to be any indication other than a consolidation of excess spending. Nokia's rarely actually sell their devices through their stores and I certainly have never understood why they even felt the need to even open them except for the fact that they had too much money. Companies regularly do these kinds of cutting for things that don't actually do anything for the company. Heck, some of my previous companies regularly shuts down whole divisions even on record earnings.

Also, Nokia has been mass firing over the years and this started long before iPhone or Android and it is always in the thousands of global employees.

[TravisAxel Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:26AM]

Steve Jobs, u mad?

[Mentat Posted Dec 30th 2009 4:43AM]

@Munk
baby gonna cry?

[Munk Posted Dec 30th 2009 5:05AM]

@Kamokazi: Yes. We all are indeed entitled to our opinions - Its a free world! However there still is a thing called decency, irrespective of how depraved one may think society has become, we as individuals need to take responsibility for our own actions.

The way I see it is that it is not very funny to make fun of someone's serious health issues. These things are not in human control and can inflict anyone of us at anytime.

Whether you feel the same way or not is of course up-to you :)
------
@Mentat: Huh?

[John Doe Posted Dec 30th 2009 9:55AM]

Woo HOO! Let em have it Nokia! Go apocalyptic on their asses!

[bakkermaarten007 Posted Dec 30th 2009 11:27AM]

From the time we intercepted
Feels a lot like suicide
Slow and sad, grown inside us
Arouse and see you're mine
SEE YOU AT THE BITTER END!

[Flix C Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:02PM]

Reading all the comments I sense something really crazy.
Americans are, it seems, really convinced that the USA is a fair representation of the world in general.
I always though It was something europeans would say to mock you guys, because you know you are most of the time convinced you're right, and that you've picked the best solution (as if there was a "best" solution to anything..)
So up until now I always considered your so-called USA-centered, nationalistic view of the world a myth, mostly based on jealousy.
No more.

You really think the US are the world, so much that everyone here including Engadget seems to think that Apple is the BIG player in this particular market and that Nokia is some loosy startup who patented some crap 10 years ago and is now suing everyone that used it because they were unable to market it correctly.

Well no it's not.
It's about Nokia which is and has been for more than 5 years number 1, suing Apple who didn't existed 5 years ago and still thinks it can use the work of Nokia R&D over the last 20 years FOR FREE and with no permission what so ever.

Wake up : it's not gonna happened.

If GE was to build electric cars tomorrow they would use all the GM & Ford patents for free !

[GV2811 Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:49PM]

Even though I have a 3GS, I shout : Nokia take 'em down.