Nokia braces for Trade Commission patent probe
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InterDigital claims rights violations Nokia will be investigated by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) over claims that some of its mobile phones violate another company's patents. Nokia said the patented technologies were agreed parts of a standardised technology.â¦
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Nokia , the world's biggest mobile phone maker, said on Tuesday the ongoing patent battle with Qualcomm Inc.  may work against the uptake of "third-generation" mobile technology.
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Handset vendor seeks a patent for a system that warns cell phone users of imminent lighting strikes.
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(InfoWorld) - Ongoing legal disputes over mobile phone patents between Nokia and Qualcomm are consuming much executive management time, generating substantial lawyer fees, and, if they escalate, could affect handset development and prices, experts warn. Defending IP (intellectual-property) rights through litigation "is the nature of the business," said Chris Jones, senior analyst with Canalys.com in Reading, England. "But in the case of Nokia and Qualcomm, unfortunately, it's been taking up too much management time." On Monday, Nokia responded to a patent lawsuit filed by Qualcomm in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas by filing a counterclaim against the U.S. company. Over the past two years, Qualcomm has filed 11 lawsuits against Nokia, according to a Nokia spokeswoman. The initial Qualcomm lawsuit filed in Texas deals with three patents related to the downloading of applications and other digital content over GPRSÂ or EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) networks, two technologies for speeding the transmission of packet data in GSM networks. Nokia contends that Qualcomm's patents are invalid and, in addition, has asked the Texas court to stop Qualcomm from using six Nokia implementation patents used in Qualcomm's MediaFlow and Brew technologies. Standards bodies divide patents touching the technologies they define into two categories: Those essential to a standards-compliant product, and those that only cover a particular implementation of the standard. This is the second counterclaim filed by the Finnish manufacturer. On April 2, Nokia filed a counterclaim in the U.S. Western District of Wisconsin, accusing Qualcomm of infringing on six of its patents relating primarily to multiband and multimode technologies that reduce handset and chipset size, cost, and power consumption. The counterclaim came in response to Qualcomm's initial lawsuit filed in the same court over two patents covering speech encoders used in certain GSM phones to digitize audio signals for transmission. So far, the patent infringement lawsuits against Nokia "haven't taken the vendor's eye off the ball when it comes to developing and bringing handsets to market," Jones said but warned of "too much management time being focused on these litigation cases." Nokia is in "close discussions" with its partners and customers to keep them informed of how the company is dealing with litigation, the spokeswoman said. "Our view is that they respect our right to protect our patents and our business, and to take the action we need to take," she said. Andrew Gilbert, president of Qualcomm Europe, argues that the company's licensing model has created greater competition in the market by allowing vendors without GSM patents to enter the market and compete more easily. The model, known as "pass through rights," lets manufacturers obtain the rights to use numerous GSM patents already licensed by Qualcomm -- in addition to the company's own CDMA patents -- instead of having to strike separate royalty deals with each GSM patent holder. "We think our model drives down prices of royalties and thus the price of handsets," he said. But Gilbert conceded that the current litigation is a cost factor. "Clearly, we'd rather be spending the couple of hundred million dollars on innovation," he said. That sum could easily rise as the chronology of the legal battles between Qualcomm and Nokia suggests: On Oct. 28, 2005, Nokia and five other companies, including Broadcom and Telefonaktiebolaget Ericsson, filed a complaint to the European Commission over Qualcomm's high royalty rates, among other issues. The Commission has yet to make a decision. On Nov. 4, 2005,Â Qualcomm filed a lawsuit against NokiaÂ in the federal court of San Diego, California, over GSM patents. The court put the case on hold, pending further information. On May 24, 2006,Â Qualcomm filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Nokia in the U.K.Â over two GSM patents. The trial is expected later this year. On June 9, 2006, Qualcomm filed a complaint against Nokia with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) over six GSM patents. The company later withdrew three, and the ITC has meanwhile put the case on hold. On Aug. 9, 2006, Qualcomm filed a GSM patent infringement lawsuit against Nokia in Germany. The trial is set for September. On the same day,Â Nokia filed a case in Delaware, claiming that Qualcomm breached its written contractual obligations to license essential GSM and 3G (third-generation) patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. On Oct. 4, 2006, Qualcomm filed a patent infringement lawsuits against Nokia in France and on Oct. 16 in Italy over GSM technologies. On Feb. 2, 2007, Qualcomm filed three complaints in China over GSM patents. On March 19, Nokia filed complaints against Qualcomm patents in Germany and the Netherlands. On April 2, Qualcomm filed the two cases against Nokia in Wisconsin an Texas. And on May 24,Â Nokia filed a counter-claim against QualcommÂ in response to the lawsuit filed in Wisconsin.
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InfoWorld - Ongoing legal disputes over mobile phone patents between Nokia and Qualcomm are consuming much executive management time, generating substantial lawyer fees, and, if they escalate, could affect handset development and prices, experts warn.
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Ongoing legal disputes over mobile phone patents could affect handset development and prices, experts warn.
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Ongoing legal disputes over mobile phone patents between Nokia and Qualcomm are consuming much executive management time, generating substantial lawyer fees, and, if they escalate, could affect handset development and prices, experts warn.
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Nokia Corp. hopes to distinguish its products and regain lost market share by leading the mobile-device market in delivering cutting-edge bells-and-whistles on its new handsets, company executives said Thursday duringhop a daylong meeting in New York with analysts.
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An International Trade Commission judge handed Qualcomm a minor victory in the company's long-running tussle with Nokia on Monday, ruling that the patent-infringement investigation brought by the Finnish company be concluded.
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By Kevin J. O'Brien  The Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia, locked in a multimillion- dollar patent dispute with the U.S. chip maker Qualcomm, said Thursday that it had sued its adversary in U.S.
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Nokia  won a round in one  of its many patent battles with chip maker Qualcomm Inc   as a judge with the U.S. International Trade  Commission ruled for the mobile telephone maker on Wednesday.
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The world's top cellphone maker Nokia   said on Tuesday the U.S. International Trade  Commission has decided to start investigating Qualcomm Inc's   trade practices and alleged patent infringement.
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Shares of Nokia  are likely to extend gains as the world's leading cell phone maker expands its share of the growing global market, financial newspaper Barron's reported in its September 17 edition.
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The Supreme Court is ready to hear from lawyers from Microsoft and AT&amp;T as it considers a long-running patent dispute between the industry giants.
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Finnish manufacturer Nokia, the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, said Monday it would release a touch-screen handset for the first time in the second half of this year.
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A judge has halted legal proceedings in one of Qualcomm Inc.'s complaints that Nokia Corp. violated its wireless-technology patents. The move came as a deadline neared for the two companies to renew a high-stakes licensing agreement.
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This patent, as well as others, could yield information about company's plans for a "Gphone."