14 DAY TRIAL // Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia, as many of you might already know, is engaged at the moment in a legal dispute with Cupertino-based Apple, as each company claims that the other one has infringed a series of patents it owns. The battle was started by Nokia, which sued Apple over allegedly infringed essential patents, and was continued by the latter with a countersuit filed in early December. Following that, the Finnish company filed a complaint with ITC on December 28, stating that all of Apple's products infringe another series of patents Nokia holds.
Nokia's ITC complaint against Apple (which has been brought to the web via Engadget), states that the latter infringes a number of seven of Nokia's patents with all of its products: “This Complaint is directed to Apple's imported electronic devices, including at least the iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPhone 3GS mobile phones, iPod Nano, iPod Touch, and iPod Classic portable music players, and iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Pro, Mac Book, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air computers.” At the same time, the handset vendor asks for the court to ban the distribution of Apple's devices in the US, or at least of those who infringe the company's patents.
According to Nokia, the patents that Apple infringes with all of its products are essential to its business, and are seen as those which differentiate Nokia's phones from the devices delivered by other makers. Among these patents, Nokia points towards one related to the navigation wheel on handsets, one for the touchscreen keyboard keys that become larger when touched, as well as one for the technology that shuts off the display of touchscreen handsets during a phone call so that no accidental presses of the screen occur.
As Nokia Views notes, the Finnish company also says that “Apple's products infringe Nokia's patent from 1998 related to text and email messages where the phone numbers as well as www and email addresses are highlighted inside of the messages. Then, for example, by clicking such highlighted phone number, users can make a phone call or save the number in the address book. A click to a www address can open the web browser.” Other patents are also listed as being infringed, such as the one that involves “combining multiple functionality of the camera on the same chip,” or one that “combines the antenna around the speaker” (for additional room inside the device) along with one related to battery savings.
One thing that is certain here is that Nokia does not want to play this nicely. Back in October, the company said that the iPhone infringed a series of essential patents in connectivity, and now it points towards all of Apple's products. Not to mention that the company quotes Steve Jobs stating the following: “...we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas,” and it is said to plan filing another suit against Apple with the Delaware court. More details on Nokia's ITC complaint can he seen here, while the recording in which Jobs says the aforementioned words is on YouTube.