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Nokia Sues Apple For Patent Infringement In iPhone
AVee writes "Engadget (amongst many others) reports that Nokia is suing Apple because the iPhone infringes on 10 Nokia patents related to GSM, UTMS and WiFi. While the press release doesn't contain much detail, it does state that Apple didn't agree to 'appropriate terms for Nokia's intellectual property,' which sounds like there have been negotiations about those patents."
Is nokia a patent troll?
Patent troll is a pejorative term used for a person or company that enforces its patents against one or more alleged infringers in a manner considered unduly aggressive or opportunistic, often with no intention to manufacture or market the patented invention.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll
Doesn't sound like it.
This is largely the point; phone companies gather 100s of patents that cover every aspect of their phones. These patents are often so broad that courts will not uphold them or will force them to be narrowed.
Still, the lawyers use these patents as a sort of negotiation tool. In this and many other industries, patent lawyers aren't lawyers as much as strategists; for all we know, Nokia is doing this as a defensive method because they know they are infringing on some Apple IP. Or, perhaps, they want some cool multitouch features in their next phone.
See this article for a fascinating analysis of Apple and Palm's patent war:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/28/apple-vs-palm-the-in-depth-analysis/
Last I checked the N900 was fairly worthless for connecting to Exchange, which, sad though it may well be, is kind of a critical must-have for a "smart" phone.
Incorrect sir. N810 lacked an exchange client. The N900 has full support for Exchange just like every other Nokia Smartphone: link
Symbian is such a primitive operating system I doubt its possible for it to infringe any patent that didn't expire 10 years ago.
It's a realtime microkernel with an event-driven userspace API, a full POSIX implementation. Calling it primitive is quite astonishing.
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No, they really are saying exactly that. Look at the sentence: "Endaget is reporting..." (statement of fact) "...that Nokia is suing Apple..." (statement of fact) "...because the iPhone infringes on 10 patents" (statement of fact).
I used to copy-edit at CNN, and this is a textbook case of convicting someone through sloppy writing. The summary should say "...because Nokia says the iPhone..." or "...because the iPhone allegedly..."
Of course, the other funny thing is that most every other patent story on Slashdot howls at the ridiculousness of patent cases, if not the implausibility of patents themselves.
Bullshit. If the Nokia N900 is so good, why are people buying 10x as many iPhones?
Because the N900 isn't being released until November, so people can't buy it yet. I have one, but then again, I work for Nokia. :)
I'm assuming you're just trolling, but still...
1) The N900 isn't on the market yet. It's due to be released in the US next month, and later in the rest of the world's markets.
2) The N900 does have an Exchange client, according to their marketspeak. Considering rules regarding marketspeak matching reality on things like that, I'd assume that they speak the truth.
3) The iPhone is popular because it has the cool factor. If you want something that's actually useable, the iPhone isn't bad, but most people in business actually have a Crackberry.
4) While it's personal preference, I'm actually quite happy with my Android-running HTC Dream. All of the apps are free, it's reasonably fast for downloads/google maps, it came with a 2GB SD card (which is big enough, for now), and I've got it set up to poll my home e-mail/gmail on a regular basis. I've got all of the functionality of a Blackberry that I'd want, and then some. Android's the new kid on the block, but from what I've seen, it's a definite competitor to the iPhone's popularity.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
A big problem is that a "standard" means many things. I used to be naive and assume that standards were written by people in ivory towers who had not political or economic interests. There was also a bit of naivete in thinking the standards were written first and the technology arrived afterwords. Ie, like the academics create the ideas and base a standard off of it, then later on a commercial entity goes and turns it into a real product.
Except that I've learned later this is not at all the way things work. Standards are highly political, and highly economic. Academics rarely has any place in the product, except maybe by getting a few votes. There is sort of a hope out there that most voters will remain above the fray, but in practice this is a misplaced hope most of the time.
What generally happens, is that company A develops a new technology, and starts to sell it. Then company B develops a competing product, with vaguely similar technology. A standardization effort is started. Both company A and B refuse to compromise, and insist that their implementation be the standard. After all, these companies are already selling products to customers, and if they lose this standards fight, then they end up with a lot of customers who have noncompliant/obsolete devices. Meanwhile companies C and D join the standardization effort, because they want to make similar products but can't afford the years of prior research and development to come up with their own technology. Companies E and F join because they want to make auxillary products that can interact properly with the devices when they're standardized. Then all these people start taking sides.
where are you getting your "industry average" numbers?
The numbers come from Booz Allen Hamilton and Business Week:
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2005/10/does_rd_spendin.html
Apple's R&D to sales ratio is 5.9%, computer industry average is 7.6%.
Apple is no lightweight in the R&D department and NONE of those other companies are expanding their R&D spending as fast as Apple.
Apple spends money development, but not much on research; Apple's research output according to the usual objective measures (publications and citations) is non-existent.
Due to the fact that any patents are only valid in some markets, it is always up to the manufacturer of the end product to license the patents they need for each market the device is sold in. Component suppliers never include patent royalties in the cost of the component unless it is patents that they themselves own.