Apple sues Nokia!

In a terse announcement, Apple made it clear its action was a reaction to Nokia’s suit: ‘Responding to a lawsuit brought against the company by Nokia, Apple today filed a countersuit claiming that Nokia is infringing 13 Apple patents.’ 

‘Other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours,’ said Apple general counsel and senior VP, Bruce Sewell.

Sewell’s statement was a direct riposte to Nokia’s VP Ilkka Rahnasto, who lambasted Apple last October when it sued Apple: ‘The basic principle in the mobile industry is that those companies who contribute in technology development to establish standards create intellectual property, which others then need to compensate for. Apple is also expected to follow this principle,’ he said.

In its counter suit Apple specifically denied that it unlawfully copied any of the technologies named in Nokia’s earlier suit against it.

While Nokia’s allegedly-infringed patents centre around network technologies relating to wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption, Apple’s allegedly infringed patents mainly deal with the iPhone’s user interface, something which almost every rival smartphone vendor has copied to some extent.

A year ago, Apple COO, Tim Cook, issued a warning that Apple might not stand for rivals ripping off the iPhone. Talking to financial analysts, he said: ‘We like competition, as long as they don’t rip off our [intellectual property] and if they do, we’ll go after them.’

At the time his words were widely interpreted as a warning to Palm, which was developing the Pre, a touch-based smartphone, which boasted an iPhone-style interface.

However, up until now Apple has not sued any other handset maker, suggesting that its actions are defensive, rather than marking a new campaign of legal actions.

In its suit, Apple asserted that Nokia, which has been losing share in the smartphone industry, was trying to use the courts to claw back what it had lost in the market.

‘Nokia's demands appear to be driven by declines in its own mobile phone business,’ said Apple in its suit. 

Nokia lost money in its last financial quarter and recently announced cutbacks in the range of phones it offers.

‘Nokia remained focused on traditional mobile wireless handsets with conventional user interfaces. As a result, Nokia has rapidly lost share in the market for high-end mobile phones. Nokia has admitted that, as a result of the iPhone launch, the market changed suddenly and [Nokia was] not fast enough changing with it,’ said the Apple suit.

‘In response, Nokia chose to copy the iPhone, especially its enormously popular and patented design and user interface.

‘As Anssi Vanjokia, Nokia’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of Multimeda, stated at Nokia’s GoPlay event in 2007 when asked about the similarities of Nokia’s new offerings to the already released iPhone: “If there is something good in the world, we copy with pride,”’ claimed Apple.

Nokia said that it ‘will respond in due course’ to Apple’s suit.