Coverage: Nokia sues Apple alleging patent infringements

Cell phone maker Nokia sued rival Apple again on Wednesday, this time accusing the iPhone maker of violating nearly three dozen of its patents.

Eric Auchard and Jussi Rosendahl of Reuters had the news:

Nokia’s lawsuits, filed in courts in Dusseldorf, Mannheim and Munich, Germany, and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, cover patents for displays, user interfaces, software, antennas, chipsets and video coding.

“Since agreeing a license covering some patents from the Nokia Technologies portfolio in 2011, Apple has declined subsequent offers made by Nokia to license other of its patented inventions which are used by many of Apple’s products,” Nokia said in a statement.

Apple on Tuesday had taken legal action against Acacia Research Corp and Conversant Intellectual Property Management Inc, accusing them of colluding with Nokia to extract and extort exorbitant revenues unfairly from Apple.

“We’ve always been willing to pay a fair price to secure the rights of patents covering technology in our products,” said Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock. “Unfortunately, Nokia has refused to license their patents on a fair basis and is now using the tactics of a patent troll to attempt to extort money from Apple by applying a royalty rate to Apple’s own inventions they had nothing to do with.”

Acacia and Conversant did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and Nokia was not immediately available to comment on the Apple lawsuit.

Ashley Carman of The Verge notes the two have been in litigation before:

Apple and Nokia settled a patent lawsuit back in 2011, but now, they’re back at it again. This time, Apple is filing an antitrust lawsuit, not against Nokia but instead against third-party companies known as patent assertion entities, or PAEs, that are acting on its behalf. In retaliation for this lawsuit, Nokia is suing Apple directly.

In its lawsuit, Apple argues that Nokia already has agreements to license its patents for fair and reasonable terms, aka FRAND. But Nokia is transferring these patents to PAEs in order to aggressively pursue money. This, Apple says, shouldn’t be allowed because it’s “anticompetitive and abusive” to Apple and other technology companies. Nokia is separately suing because it believes Apple owes it money for patents used in Apple products.

The two companies last had a licensing spat in 2009, when Nokia sued Apple over claims that Apple infringed on some of its essential patents. These standard essential patents are used across the industry and as such, are supposed to be licensed on FRAND terms. This means companies can take advantage of these patents without paying outrageous licensing fees because they’re essential to most products.

Ina Fried of Recode notes the lawsuits came after failed negotiations on a new deal:

The two companies had a deal in 2011 that covered some Nokia patents, but Nokia says efforts to reach a broader pact have gone nowhere.

“Nokia has created or contributed to many of the fundamental technologies used in today’s mobile devices, including Apple products,” Nokia patent head Ilkka Rahnasto said in a statement. “After several years of negotiations trying to reach an agreement to cover Apple’s use of these patents, we are now taking action to defend our rights.”

One of the big concerns in the phone industry has been just how agressive Nokia might be in pursuing large patent claims now that it is no longer in the phone-making business. (New phones are being introduced under the Nokia brand, but through a brand licensing deal, not because Nokia itself is selling phones.)

Nokia’s remaining business is largely focused on making network equipment, though its smaller Nokia Technologies unit has a mission to both innovate in new areas and license the company’s brand and vast patent portfolio.

Patent lawsuits once dominated the mobile field, with nearly everyone either suing, being sued, or both. In recent years, though, the profile of new cases being filed has waned with many of the cases from earlier years either being settled or wrapping up.