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Nokia Sues Apple For Patent Infringement In iPhone

Posted by samzenpus on from the we-did-it-first dept.

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."

3 of 367 comments (clear)

  1. There's That Progress in Science & the Useful by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If Nokia couldn't sue Apple, they certainly wouldn't have developed the technology to make phones they could sell. They certainly need longer than a year to break even on their investment before Apple could use the tech to sell more phones to the public. There's no way Apple and Nokia would work together to develop a technology they could both use in their phones, if their competitors could use it after several months work adapting it to their own products. Patents must be granted for any length of time, no matter how much profit that "temporary" artificial government-enforced monopoly makes while locking the invention out from use by the maximum number of people.

    Right? No, that doesn't seem right to me, either.

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  2. Re:I'll ask it again by EvilNTUser · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Because otherwise it would be crap? We're not even talking about sound compression algorithms here, but stuff that needs serious R&D. You think >10Mbps downlink for your phone comes for free?

    Think about it this way: would you rather have a patented standard everyone contributes to or have Nokia and Samsung privately decide on something they'll use together and shut everyone else out?

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    My Sig: SEGV
  3. not surprising by jipn4 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Apple's R&D investment is far below industry average, and most of that is "D", not "R". Apple essentially doesn't publish and doesn't support university research. If all companies were as stingy as Apple when it comes to R&D, computer science research would be in deep trouble. Nokia, on the other hand, has the largest R&D investment in Europe, many times that of Apple.

    Apple can only make nice products because other companies and universities have invested a hell of a lot of money and time inventing the things that Apple then assembles into products. That model is not sustainable, and I can see why companies like Nokia are getting litigious over it.