Nokia suing Apple? WOW!

[Cjvdh]

Discuss.....

[ZR_Yancy]

Do you have a link?

[ZR_Yancy]

Do you have a link?

Edit...here's one:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/22/nokia-sues-apple-says-iphone-infringes-ten-patents/

[mr.reggaeton72]

i really cant get why nokia is suing apple, can anyone put it in simple terms, ?

BTW, interesting threat

[iphonewarrior]

whoa. This does look pretty serious.

I'm going to have to follow this.

[glsda]

Patient infringement case to try and force Apple to pay licensing fees? This may get very esoteric and hard to prove unless Apple blatantly violated Nokia's patients which I doubt they did. This may go the way of the Palm vs Apple argument. Any attorneys want to comment?

[TarekElsakka]

Hope I pick a 3GS up before this gets serious. :(

[mr.reggaeton72]

Patient infringement case to try and force Apple to pay licensing fees? This may get very esoteric and hard to prove unless Apple blatantly violated Nokia's patients which I doubt they did. This may go the way of the Palm vs Apple argument. Any attorneys want to comment?

so your saying that apple shouldnt pay fees ? rules dont apply to apple ?, if apple didnt pay fees, they should go unpunished ?, please give me a break..

[Cjvdh]

They are suing them for 200 million. If this really happens apple's prices are going to sky rocket. I'm going to get my iMac before this happens.

[mr.reggaeton72]

They are suing them for 200 million. If this really happens apple's prices are going to sky rocket. I'm going to get my iMac before this happens.

if this happens, it would really suck, but if apple didnt pay fees or ask for permissions, they should really be sued, personally, this needs to be applied to every company, if you dont pay and you think your slick and that your going to get away with it, you better know that its going to come back and bite you in the rear...

and if it does happens, and the whole world knows about it, which it will soon be known worldwide, and if apple does raise its price on everything, then nobody will buy there products anymore, at least i wont.. they should just start all over, it was there fault in the first place...

[JWiPhone]

What I don't understand is why did Nokia decide to sue Apple now? Why didn't they take this action when Apple released the gen 1 iPhone?

[glsda]

so your saying that apple shouldnt pay fees ? rules dont apply to apple ?, if apple didnt pay fees, they should go unpunished ?, please give me a break..

Lighten up reggaeton, You inferred from my post what I didn't imply, "so your saying that apple shouldnt pay fees ? rules dont apply to apple ?, if apple didnt pay fees, they should go unpunished ?" You said it, not I nor did I imply it. Maybe your a Vulcan doing a mind meld and your antenna shorted out or you're hitting the battery acid a little early this evening. lol :dft011:wicked_smile

[mr.reggaeton72]

Lighten up reggaeton, You inferred from my post what I didn't imply, "so your saying that apple shouldnt pay fees ? rules dont apply to apple ?, if apple didnt pay fees, they should go unpunished ?" You said it, not I nor did I imply it. Maybe your a Vulcan doing a mind meld and your antenna shorted out or you're hitting the battery acid a little early this evening. lol :dft011:wicked_smile

i didnt understand anything you just said, but ok, the good thing is that you and me are on then same page...everybody who avoid the rules should be punished..

[kdarling]

What I don't understand is why did Nokia decide to sue Apple now? Why didn't they take this action when Apple released the gen 1 iPhone?

Well, it could take a while to figure out if there's an infringement. And then the news said that they'd been in negotiations for a year or so.

Apple already pays other companies for IP usage. In this GSM case, companies often share IP as part payment. Perhaps that's a sticking point.

At least Nokia isn't making Apple stop sales until the issue is decided, like Qualcomm had to do a couple of years ago in a similar kind of case.

[Londonrockz568]

What I don't understand is why did Nokia decide to sue Apple now? Why didn't they take this action when Apple released the gen 1 iPhone?

Nokia waiting for Apple to sell as many phones as possible.

I read somewhere that They are suing for every iphone sold that infringes on the patents.

[Londonrockz568]

i didnt understand anything you just said, but ok, the good thing is that you and me are on then same page...everybody who avoid the rules should be punished..

Rules are a form a control, by someone who wants to control many to his form and likeness of self control.

[acosmichippo]

Still, with IP there is an implied statute of limitations. As if to say "if you REALLY cared, you'd have said something from the start."

of course, I still have to read the link, so it may just be a recent addition to the iPhone GUI.

[acosmichippo]

Just read the article. It is very vague, and does not list any specifics, so there's no use speculating.

[kdarling]

Nokia waiting for Apple to sell as many phones as possible.

Time doesn't matter. It's basic math... a fee per device. Whether they start receiving license fees early or later on, it's the same amount in the end.

Still, with IP there is an implied statute of limitations. As if to say "if you REALLY cared, you'd have said something from the start."

Again, they have to first figure it out, then document it, then negotiate. In real life, that can take years. In this case, it sounds like they've been negotiating with Apple for at least a year.

Just read the article. It is very vague, and does not list any specifics, so there's no use speculating.

We know it's about GSM and WLANs, not UIs, and that the patents "cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption." Sounds like basic cellular phone programming.

If all other companies pay Nokia, that's a huge precedent. Just as with everyone ending up paying that patent holding company for Visual Voicemail. Once any large company pays, the rest must fall in line.

[Londonrockz568]

Time doesn't matter. It's basic math... a fee per device. Whether they start receiving license fees early or later on, it's the same amount in the end.



Again, they have to first figure it out, then document it, then negotiate. In real life, that can take years. In this case, it sounds like they've been negotiating with Apple for at least a year.



We know it's about GSM and WLANs, not UIs, and that the patents "cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption." Sounds like basic cellular phone programming.

If all other companies pay Nokia, that's a huge precedent. Just as with everyone ending up paying that patent holding company for Visual Voicemail. Once any large company pays, the rest must fall in line.

Time does matter wtf?? lol

If Apple only sold 500 iphones then the case would be miniscule.
Nokia waited for them to sell a HUGE number of units....they were patient waiting up to Generation 3 before making a move.

[ZR_Yancy]

Time does matter wtf?? lol

If Apple only sold 500 iphones then the case would be miniscule.
Nokia waited for them to sell a HUGE number of units....they were patient waiting up to Generation 3 before making a move.

Agreed! If Nokia wins, this guarantees them a large chunk of change. If Nokia brought this up on the V1, Apple would've made changes to the later gen iPhones so Nokia would only be entitled to the patent on the V1 iPhones. Nokia wanted to make sure their patented technology was in Millions of iPhones before they made their move.

[TarekElsakka]

And how fast the iPhone was selling also helped Nokia a lot. :)

[kdarling]

If Apple only sold 500 iphones then the case would be miniscule.
Nokia waited for them to sell a HUGE number of units....they were patient waiting up to Generation 3 before making a move.

They're not going to make more money because they waited longer. (And I don't think they did wait. It has just taken this long.)

They're going to make more money because Apple sold more units.

Agreed! If Nokia wins, this guarantees them a large chunk of change. If Nokia brought this up on the V1, Apple would've made changes to the later gen iPhones so Nokia would only be entitled to the patent on the V1 iPhones. Nokia wanted to make sure their patented technology was in Millions of iPhones before they made their move.

You've made the rather giant assumption that Apple could create a GSM 3G phone without Nokia's patents. No other company has. It wouldn't be a GSM phone without them.

[ZR_Yancy]

They're not going to make more money because they waited longer. (And I don't think they did wait. It has just taken this long.)

They're going to make more money because Apple sold more units.



You've made the rather giant assumption that Apple could create a GSM 3G phone without Nokia's patents. No other company has. It wouldn't be a GSM phone without them.


What?!! You dare question the engenuity of Apple?!! :dft008:suprised

[Cjvdh]

Time does matter wtf?? lol

If Apple only sold 500 iphones then the case would be miniscule.
Nokia waited for them to sell a HUGE number of units....they were patient waiting up to Generation 3 before making a move.Thank you!!!!

[kdarling]

It's widespread knowledge in the cellular field that Nokia has patents on key parts of GSM and UMTS.

According to the NY Times (article here (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/technology/companies/23nokia.html)), Nokia has tried for quite some time to get Apple to pay the normal license fee.

And again, it doesn't matter whether Nokia brought it up immediately, or a hundred years later... the total fees owed would be the same.

Unless you think Apple would've dropped GSM and gone CDMA instead. But then they would've had to pay Qualcomm instead.

[Cjvdh]

Steve Job's needs to pay up. Lol!

[kdarling]

New info: Ericsson says that they have a deal with Apple for licensing.

So the question is: why didn't Apple cover all the bases and also have a Nokia license (as every other phone maker has)?

Apple must have some reason why they don't think they owe Nokia.

Perhaps Infineon lied to Apple. Perhaps Apple thought the Ericsson license was sufficient. But the trouble with those scenarios is that Nokia apparently informed Apple some time ago, so ignorance is not the reason.

On a related note, Apple has more on their plate that just Nokia. Seems like every feature steps on somebody's patent. They already had to settle out of court for using Visual Voice Mail. And they're currently being sued over their smooth scrolling and zooming methods.

Sounds like the smartphone business needs a common patent aggregator organization for feature licensing. Many companies already cross-license, and Apple will have to either make deals or pay more fees.

[kdarling]

And more info.

I just read the 30 page complaint here (http://images.intomobile.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/complaint.pdf), and skimmed the patents in question.

The patents seem to mostly be about software. Nokia points out that a couple are required to implement GSM, and at least one to do 802.11.

Nokia says Apple has rejected all common fair price license offers, both by portfolio (price for all) or by each patent.

Nokia claims that Apple was able to unfairly get more market share because it could price its handsets lower, by not paying for the required licenses.

Nokia asks for a trial by jury in Delaware.

[mr.reggaeton72]

if apple does get sued, that means they need to pay for every iphone shipped, which is around 200 million dollars, i think more, i dont think this will be enough to get apple bankrupt, but it will defenetly be a hard blow to apple..

[kdarling]

Apple has around $34 billion in cash and stocks. $200 million is chump change for them.

But Apple could end up paying a large penalty on top of the back license fees, if Nokia convinces a jury that Apple unfairly got sales on Nokia's back.

What's odd to me, is that if Apple objected to one or more patents, then they could've disputed just those and paid for the rest. But they refused doing even that. Something is not being told here.

[acosmichippo]

I'm sure they've got that stashed away in a swiss castle for a rainy day.

[Londonrockz568]

I'm sure they've got that stashed away in a swiss castle for a rainy day.

Yes, however the laws have changed over there for banking.

[Cjvdh]

Apple has around $34 billion in cash and stocks. $200 million is chump change for them.

But Apple could end up paying a large penalty on top of the back license fees, if Nokia convinces a jury that Apple unfairly got sales on Nokia's back.

What's odd to me, is that if Apple objected to one or more patents, then they could've disputed just those and paid for the rest. But they refused doing even that. Something is not being told here.
Im sure Apple had enough money just pay them off and deal with them privately and not make it a legal issue. I wonder what Steve Jobs thinks about all this. Has anyone seen anything posted on the internet about this? If so link me.