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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."
Why are standards based on patented technology?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Once the iPhones will have all flown away, Nokia will be left with noone to sue !!!
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Canned answer: "How else will we encourage innovation?!"
Palm trees and 8
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.
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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make install -not war
Maybe Apple thinks the patents won't stand up in court. Just because 40 other companies licensed them from Nokia, doesn't mean those other companies actually considered taking on Nokia. Are those other companies as big and brash as Apple? Apple has an estimated market cap of ~$180 billion, while Nokia has ~$50 billion.
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Would you just do a spinoff site calls "SueDot" already?
This will be another Cisco event where the case eventually gets settled out of court for some undisclosed amount of money... nothing to see here.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Since nearly every other cell phone maker has licensed these patents and Apple was negotiating to license them chances are pretty good Nokia's claim is valid. Don't think it has much to do with Slashdot bias.
Presumably Nokia's licensing terms were unreasonable to Apple, this is just escalation of the "negotiating" process by one side or the other, Nokia thinks they will win and get more cash than Apple was offering in the negotiation, or maybe even Apple thought they will do better in court or with a counter suit over other patents so they provoked Nokia in to this.
@de_machina
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. :)
Looking over these posts..it's amazing that how little people understand of the technology they use.
Nokia's patents pertaining to GSM technology and UMTS have absolutely nothing to do with a phones OS but rather the 7 layers under it.
Nokia has spent many millions over the years on GSM and UMTS. They are major contributors to the 3GPP standards body and have help in a measurable way to shape the technology.
How can people call Nolia a patent troll because some company comes in years after Nokia did all the work and steals the tech?? Are you kidding me?
I know it's Apple and the normal rules of the world should not apply, but for F's sake people. This is the reason we have patents! It's not some nonsense software patent.
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.
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.