14 DAY TRIAL // Nokia's legal history with lawsuits filed against Qualcomm and some in which it has received accusations too and has been charged against goes a long way back in time. A new file has been added to the older ones, in order to seek justice from the United States International Trade Commission (ITC).
Nokia claims that Qualcomm has once again made unfair trade practices through infringing 5 Nokia patents in its CDMA and WCDMA/GSM chipsets. As a result, they ask for ITC to investigate the matter and if their accusations are supported by proofs, to take legal action. This means an exclusion order to bar importation to the United States of infringing Qualcomm chipsets. This will also be applied to restriction products such as handsets, containing the infringing chipsets, in order to make the picture complete.
Rick Simonson, chief financial officer at Nokia has commented on the matter: "We are taking this action to stop Qualcomm's practice of copying Nokia's patented technology, without permission, and making these innovations available to its chipset customers". Moreover, Nokia claims that there are significant evidences towards proving Qualcomm's fault in the matter.
The patents in question refer to technologies that improve the performance and efficiency of wireless communication devices. Moreover, they enable lower manufacturing costs, smaller product size and increased battery life for the handsets that use them. Nokia gives them great credit for the success of the products that use them in the competition with other mobile phone producers.
This is only one more battle in the "war" that has been going on between Nokia and Qualcomm over a long period of time. Both sides accuse each other, making a solution seem far away from being reached. The issues involve Nokia's use of Qualcomm patents for high-speed 3G wireless technology, but also Qualcomm's use of many Nokia-patented technologies.