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Nokia Claims Patent Violations in Most Apple Products
An anonymous reader writes with an extract from this Associated Press story, as carried by The Globe and Mail: "Nokia is broadening its legal fight with Apple, saying almost all of the company's products violate its patents, not just the iPhone. Nokia Corp. said Tuesday that it has filed a complaint against Apple Inc. with the US International Trade Commission. The Finnish phone maker says Apple's iPhone, iPods and computers all violate its intellectual property rights."
They have actually already countersuited Nokia for earlier patent disputes: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2357039,00.asp
The problem in the world today is communication. Too much communication - Homer Simpson
One of the patents that Apple is countersuing on is this one:
No. 6,239,795 B1: Pattern and color abstraction in a graphical user interface
Sounds to me like rabid software patenting.
Source- http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/12/apple_nokia_sto.html
The two are not necessarily exclusive. If you hate patents, having the big patent supporters beat each other to death with them is a decent step to getting rid of them. The best possible outcome would be a multiple hundred billion volley of lawsuits between all of the biggies until they bring each other to their knees. If they die, we win. If they wise up and back away from supporting patents, we win. If they clog the courts so full that they can't function, we win. Triple bonus points if they all decide the real problem is the USPTO and they sue it to death.
New meme, trademark confusion. Be sure to prominently mix and match trademarks when talking to various companies. Perhaps we can get a corporate world war started :-)
Judging by market share, Nokia is number one with Symbian. Judging by operating system technology, Nokia is number one with Maemo. Who exactly do they need to catch up with and how?
My Sig: SEGV
Well, at least in the USA, if the "thing" being patented is something a human being could do (with an extreme surplus of time and infinite paper and pencils) then it is an abstract idea and explicitly excluded from protection. This is why, for instance, you can't patent raw mathematics like calculus.
And specifically, because computers see all software as "raw mathematics" at the hardware level, software should be excluded from patenst. [Or put another way: human beings are a 1 centi-hertz CPU, and US legal precedent excludes any activity they perform unaided from patenting.]
Do you like Japanese imports?
Okay. How about that: Nokia made their first cell phone in 1982. Ten years later they made the world's first GSM phone.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I thought those were the patents that Apple held. So these are the ones Apple is claiming Nokia infrienged. Source: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/12/11/apple_files_countersuit_against_nokia.html
Say NO to unpaid Internships!
Nokia wanted to charge Apple 3x times more only after Apple refused cross-licensing. And cross-licensing is what surely any other notable phone tech manufacturer does with Nokia.
Seems Apple is just convinced it should be the only one getting better treatment than "fair/reasonable and non-discriminatory" (as agreed by this industry). I say send the spoiled kid to his room first.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Yes, the patents for GSM are offered under RAND terms. i.e., a nominal (but not trivial) amount of money.
The lawsuit comes from the fact that Apple decided it was special and, unlikely everybody else, didn't have to pay.
Apple's market cap is not their actual assets nor capital, market capitalisation is how much the market perceives a company is worth based on it's stock price. Market Cap is built upon the almighty Imaginary Dollar (!$) which is responsible for the current economic crisis. The Imaginary Dollars come from Apple's stock price if they start borrowing based on the amount of money they potentially have rather then the amount of money they actually have the same thing that happened to the US economy will happen to Apple.
Nokia has buildings, fabrication plants, subsidiaries, real assets. Apple has Stock. So Nokia has more actual assets to back up their fight with. Market Capitalisation is entirely based on share price so this has little bearing on their actual ability to raise capital, I.E. market cap is not very good collateral against a loan where as actual assets are.
In addition to this, Nokia already has the experience and expertise.
Market cap doe not mean anything (as a point of trivia, Nokia's market capitalisation accounts for 1/3 of the Helsinki Stock exchange) but lets look at revenue shall we.
Nokia: E50.72 Bn (US$72.6)
Apple: US$32.48 Bn
Net Income
Nokia: E3.98 Bn (US$5.71)
Apple: US$4.83 Bn
Total Assets
Nokia: E39.58 Bn (US$56.77)
Apple: US$39.57 Bn
Total Equity
Nokia: E16.51 Bn (US$23.68)
Apple: US$21.03
So Nokia has a significant advantage in all by equity (which controls the amount they can borrow on its debts for existing assets) where Nokia only has a slight advantage. Nokia can borrow a lot more then Apple seeing as it can back up its debts with real assets rather then IP (which isn't worth anything as collateral).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.