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."

Comments

This is not going to end well

[richardkelleher]

Apple has been patenting things for a long time. If they look really hard, I suspect they will find hundreds of patents that Nokia is using without compensation.

Re:This is not going to end well

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever wins, we lose.

Get to da choppa!

Re:This is not going to end well

[palegray.net]

Your point is well made. Large companies like Apple, IBM, Microsoft, etc maintain huge patent portfolios and have extraordinarily complicated cross-licensing arrangements that would take an army of outside attorneys decades to fully decipher. It's largely a defensive measure; as you pointed out, poking at Apple with a stick is likely to result in Apple bludgeoning them with a log.

Re:This is not going to end well

[Penguuu]

They have actually already countersuited Nokia for earlier patent disputes: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2357039,00.asp

Re:This is not going to end well

[Anonymous Coward]

You are aware that Nokia has been around since the 19th century and have a much larger patent portfolio than Apple, right? Nokia's amount of R&D dwarfs the amount Apple does.

Re:This is not going to end well

[Midnight Thunder]

You are aware that Nokia has been around since the 19th century and have a much larger patent portfolio than Apple, right? Nokia's amount of R&D dwarfs the amount Apple does.

That might be the case, but only patents filed in the past 20 years are relevant (20 years being generally the longest period for a patent, in any country). For this reason what matters is not how much innovation a company had done since their existence, but how much it has been innovating and filing in the past 20 years.

Re:This is not going to end well

[Bigjeff5]

So you're saying it would be more like Nokia poking Apple with a stick, Apple getting out their Super Stick of Doom (patent pending), followed by Nokia crushing Apple with their Patent Log of All Things Terrible and Marvelous (patented)?

Re:This is not going to end well

[Itninja]

Whoever wins, we lose.

Dear Sir,

I am from 20th Century Fox Corporation and are hereby informing you that we own the rights to "Whoever wins, we lose". Please cease and desist use of that phrase immediately or face hilarious legal action.

Re:This is not going to end well

[Monkeedude1212]

Just FYI, never say "Something has been around since the 19th Century" - The difference between 1801 and 1899 is pretty huge, and it only leads to under or over estimation. Say 1860's next time.

And also, as a side note, their first electronic device was launched in the 1960's - so its not like their broad patent portfolio as a paper mill will really affect Apple too much.

Re:This is not going to end well

[sznupi]

Hey, Apple does ship printed materials with their products and there are rumors about they getting into e-book business ;)

Re:This is not going to end well

[Xest]

The issue Apple faces is that the patents Nokia were originally pursuing were patents that every single other mobile manufacturer was happy to license.

This suggests that Nokia actually has a strong case and there's clearly a good reason for Nokia doing this whilst not needing to go after other phone manufacturers. Despite all the iHype each iteration of the iPhone has still only sold around 10mill to 15mill handsets which is pretty much par for the course for high end phones like this, although Apple likes to group the separate handsets together into "the iPhone" and suggest sales of 40mill whilst separating it's opponents iterations (for example the N95, N96 iterations) to show itself as more of a success story than the figures really put it at.

The question is, is Apple's patent portfolio that usable against Nokia really enforceable? Nokia's clearly is hence why every other manufacturer has been licensing them without hassle. Nokia no doubt looked into this point long before they started the patent action against Apple and clearly seem to believe they have a case. What's more, as Apple isn't playing nicely with the entire rest of the cell phone market Apple may find it's not just Nokia it's up against but the likes of Sony Ericsson, Motorola and so forth also. If Apple starts digging into it's patent portfolio to use against Nokia it will be a cause for concern for other companies that could potentially infringe these patents and Apple may find itself up against all these companies also. Again, this is not a problem in Nokia's case, because everyone who could be threatened by Nokia's patents is already licensing them. The only chance Apple has in fighting this with counter-cases is if it can find patents that everyone but Nokia licenses from them, but as Apple's counter-patents so far have been extremely minor it seems highly unlikely Apple has any real threatening usable patents to counter-sue with without bringing to bear on it the cross hairs of perhaps not just the rest of the mobile phone industry who would also be at threat, but from large segments of the IT industry including other giants such as IBM and Microsoft.

I applaud what Apple has done to the cell phone market in giving it a much needed wake up call and taking mobile phones forward, but that doesn't give it some right to break all the rules of the phone market. Really, the sensible solution for Apple would be to just license the patents like every other cell phone manufacturer does rather than continuing to pretend it's special. It can't on one hand complain that Nokia wishes to be able to use some of their technology as part of the license agreement and suggest that as such Nokia is showing a lack of innovation all the while whilst doing exactly that themselves by using Nokia's technology without license.

Re:This is not going to end well

[cthellis]

Was Nokia actually playing by their own established licensing expectations for that technology, or were they attempting to use it to coerce Apple with terms not applied to other licensing partners?

Re:This is not going to end well

[GasparGMSwordsman]

I agree with most of your statements, but not with, "The only chance Apple has in fighting this with counter-cases is if it can find patents that everyone but Nokia licenses from them..."

Other companies may feel threatened, but that has no bearing on THIS case. If Nokia is infringing on one of these patents then that is bad for them. Possible infringement by other parties has no relevance. Even if it did, Apple could always create a simple licensing agreement with those third parties to assuage other cell companies.

Re:This is not going to end well

[dunkelfalke]

Okay. How about that: Nokia made their first cell phone in 1982. Ten years later they made the world's first GSM phone.

Re:This is not going to end well

[richardkelleher]

So, instead of one company poking the other with a stick and getting hit with a log, you end up with both companies starting with sticks and the beating each other over the head with teams of lawyers! Not going to end well...

Re:This is not going to end well

[richardkelleher]

Yeah, that's the ticket.

Re:This is not going to end well

[rsmith-mac]

Bear in mind why Apple hasn't licensed these patents yet. If their side of the story (and their counter-suits) are to be believed, then it's because Nokia won't license them under Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory (RAND) terms.

All indications that Apple wants to pay the same licensing fee that Sony, Motorola, etc have paid. Nokia on the other hand doesn't want the fee - they want to cross-license Apple's patents - which are far more valuable than any fee that other handset manufacturers have paid. Nokia is violating RAND by refusing to license the necessary patents to Apple as they have the other handset manufacturers. Under RAND terms, Apple is under no obligation to cross-license to get access to Nokia's patents, although they still have the option of doing so if they'd like (and here's a hint, they don't want to).

For that reason, even if Nokia has a stronger patent portfolio, it's anyone's guess how this will finally go. The larger GSM Association requires that all of this stuff be offered under RAND terms, so there may be consequences for Nokia if they keep this up.

Re:This is not going to end well

[dontmakemethink]

However, looking really hard at TFA doesn't reveal anything. How could the author know Nokia claims "almost all" of Apple's products violate Nokia's patents without citing one single specific example? Pretty in-depth journalism there. Maybe they ran out of space on the internet? Everyone use SMS shortforms from now on...

Re:This is not going to end well

[Midnight Thunder]

You know GSM? Yeah, Nokia did most of the work there based on another standard they mostly developed with Ericsson, NMT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia#Involvement_in_GSM As GSM was published in 1990, I suppose they may have a patent or ten in that area from the last 20 years.

Certainly, but these patents are surely part of the GSM license which Apple paid for from the GSM Association? It would seem really odd for Apple to pay a fortune for a license, that does not cover any of the required patents.

Re:This is not going to end well

[nneonneo]

Nokia demanded that Apple cross-license several of its patents in return for licensing the key GSM patents, something it has not asked other manufacturers to do. Nokia therefore singled out Apple for licensing terms despite promising the GSM Alliance that it would license these patents under fair and non-discriminatory terms; singling out Apple and trying to force a cross-licensing deal is not non-discriminatory.

Re:This is not going to end well

[CoccoBill]

Nokia has something like the 5th or 6th largest patent portfolio in telecom equipment and the largest in the mobile industry in the world. I somehow don't think Nokia is the one that should be worried.

Re:This is not going to end well

[Xest]

"Possible infringement by other parties has no relevance."

It certainly does, because if Apple does get them enforced in the court it means companies using them are a lot less safe. They're put into a situation where they can either spend the rest of their existence shitting themselves that Apple could pull the rug from under them at any moment or also themselves put forth pre-emptive court cases to try and force Apple to license the patents to them. Apple will find itself under a deluge of patent suits as everyone scrambles to force a cross-licensing agreement to protect themselves from patents which now have a legal precedent behind them.

As Apple isn't willing to cross-license with Nokia, do you really think they'll be willing to cross-license with anyone else?

Re:This is not going to end well

[CoccoBill]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BS2UO20091229

"Since Motorola Inc launched a patent attack on Nokia in 1989, the Finnish firm has built one of the mobile industry's widest patent portfolios. Only Ericsson and Qualcomm Inc have comparable portfolios."

Re:This is not going to end well

[Hurricane78]

I am more positive about this:

I think the more those “IP” idiots get force-fed their own “medicine”, the faster they either die or wise up.
I’d go so far as to intentionally spark “IP wars” between the worst “IP” idiots.

We should browse all patents in a crowd-sourced way, and list all potential offenders. Then overwhelm the patenting companies with the lists of “offenders” until they completely and utterly drown in them, and the only way left, to make it stop, is to give up and dismiss the concept of “IP”. (Be sure to leave that door open. If they don’t have that way left, it will end badly.)

Re:This is not going to end well

[dangitman]

The question is, is Apple's patent portfolio that usable against Nokia really enforceable? Nokia's clearly is hence why every other manufacturer has been licensing them without hassle.

This argument makes no sense. The fact that others are licensing Nokia's patents is not proof that Nokia's patents are valid or enforceable. Invalid and unenforceable patents get licensed all the time, just to save legal hassles, or because of ignorance. Try using logic next time.

Re:This is not going to end well

[dgatwood]

If Apple is in violation of GSM patents, then the patent system is even more broken than I thought. If I go buy a Wi-Fi card and stick it in a laptop, install the drivers, and sell the laptop as a Wi-Fi-enabled device, I don't expect to have to pay patent royalties to the Wi-Fi Alliance. I expect that the Wi-Fi chip vendor paid those royalties, and that the cost of those royalties were passed on to the card manufacturer as part of the part cost, and that the card manufacturer then passed the cost on to me as part of the price of the card.

More to the point, the very act of buying a legally licensed chip should implicitly grant a patent license to any and all software technologies required to actually make use that chip. Anything less is patently absurd. To give a car analogy, it would be like selling an engine to a car manufacturer, but using a special connector on the end of the crankshaft and suing the car manufacturer years later for violating a patent on the matching connector.

Re:This is not going to end well

[sznupi]

I would be very surprised if licensing deals with Sony Ericsson, Motorola, etc. don't include some amount of cross-licensing.

In which case demanding the same from Apple is exactly the Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory thing.

Re:This is not going to end well

[GasparGMSwordsman]

Again that has no relevance in THIS case. That may be relevant to a great many other parties, but those parties have no way of effecting this case. At best they can present prior art (the same prior art that Nokia could produce independently) or attempt to file a friend of the court brief. Neither of these items is going to have any real impact on this case.

I am NOT saying that those other parties will not be mad, or will not be affected. I am saying that the only issue before THIS case is if Nokia infringed (at least as far as the counter claims are concerned). Anything else is beyond the scope of the counter claim and legally moot.

Re:This is not going to end well

[1 inch punch]

Your numbers are way off. Apple had cumulative sales of 50 million iPhone OS devices (iPhones in various versions and iPod Touch) a month or so ago. The general consensus is that about half are iPod Touches, so that leaves about 25 million, and not 10-15 million that you claim.

But handset sales are only one part of the equation. Apple is recognizing revenue through carrier deals and also through the App Store, and iTunes Music Store. Until now there is no credible competitor for the App Store in terms of sales volume, profit or developer mindshare.

Re:This is not going to end well

[Xest]

That's certainly Apple's argument yes, but whether it has any validity is really down to the GSM Association and the courts to decide, the best anyone on Slashdot can do is merely speculate in this respect.

My point was more aimed in response to the idea that Apple will be able to defend itself with mere counter-suits. As stated in my original post above, I don't think they are well positioned to do so. The fact their current counter-suit is so weak in terms of the patents it uses is a pretty good example of why Apple doesn't seem in a good position to fight patent with patent in this particular case.

You cannot claim Apple's patents are far more valuable than the fee other handset manufacturers have paid because you do not know the terms of the deal Nokia has made with other manufacturers, nor do I believe the patents Nokia has requested to license from Apple have been published. It is rather dishonest to suggest this unless you are working at Nokia and know what their licensing terms with the 3rd parties are and know what they have requests from Apple? Is there really anything Apple could license to Nokia that is worth any more than the patents which Nokia is suing over which underly major essential components of Apple's flagship devices?

Re:This is not going to end well

[BasilBrush]

Apple likes to group the separate handsets together into "the iPhone" and suggest sales of 40mill whilst separating it's opponents iterations (for example the N95, N96 iterations) to show itself as more of a success story than the figures really put it at.

[citation needed]

Re:This is not going to end well

[gander666]

Dayum, I WISH I was moderating today...

Re:This is not going to end well

[TubeSteak]

All indications that Apple wants to pay the same licensing fee that Sony, Motorola, etc have paid. Nokia on the other hand doesn't want the fee - they want to cross-license Apple's patents - which are far more valuable than any fee that other handset manufacturers have paid.

And how does this excuse Apple's unlicensed usage of the patented technology?
If Nokia is being unfair, Apple should take it to Court (or to whatever industry body regulates these disputes) without violating Nokia's patents.

Re:This is not going to end well

[sznupi]

His numbers were an overestimation; "each iteration of the iPhone sold 10-15 million devices", which adds up to even less than your 25 million.

Yes, you did just what Apple likes you to do - treating only Apple in device market shares as one category which equals "manufacturer"

Re:This is not going to end well

[rsmith-mac]

It's possible (and even likely) that some of the others have done cross-licensing deals, but if everyone had done that, then there wouldn't be any phone manufacturers besides Sony Ericsson, Moto, and Nokia. Not everyone has valuable patents to cross-license; for example the army of dumbphone manufacturers in developing countries. If the only way to get Nokia's patents was to cross-license, they simply wouldn't exist.

There is a price at which Nokia will license their patents - however it looks like they aren't making it available to Apple.

Re:This is not going to end well

[sznupi]

What army of dumbphone manufacturers in developing countries? Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung, LG - they have over 80% of the market. They generally, and Nokia particularly, completely dominate especially in "developing" countries. Other "small" manufacturers can just as well get licensing package or radio modules outright. Or...you have some Chinese manufacturers making phones without valid IMEI, not concerned with licensing anyway.

There is a price at which Nokia will license their patents - however it looks like they aren't making it available to Apple.

Yes, there is a price. I guess the one made available to Apple is very comparable to rules by which other manufacturers play. But Apple wants to have better rules.

Re:This is not going to end well

[lepidosteus]

You completly missed his point. He's not saying apple is violating patents related to GSM, he's saying that yes, nokia did a lot of patented R&D in the last two decades.

Re:This is not going to end well

[1 inch punch]

But that is the point.

You develop for iPhone OS, you are largely absolved of the burden of having to determine device configuration and specifications. You know the exact target; either an iPhone/iPhone 3G/iPod Touch (no camera or video recording ability) or an iPhone 3GS. Can all Nokia smartphones run the apps on ovi?

Re:This is not going to end well

[dissy]

But that's the point here. What do Macs or iPods have to do with GSM?

Even limiting things to GSM in the iPhone for a minute, Apple purchased Infineon GSM/EDGE RF chips to be used in the iPhone.

Is this not Infineons problem? Is not Infineon the company Nokia should be suing since they are the ones selling unlicensed chips?

Re:This is not going to end well

[jpmorgan]

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.

Re:This is not going to end well

[mjwx]

That might be the case, but only patents filed in the past 20 years are relevant (20 years being generally the longest period for a patent, in any country).

Nokia is significantly bigger and richer then apple, roughly by about 4 times. The amount of patents Apple has matters little if 1. Apple is proven to be knowingly and wilfully infringing (not obscurely) or 2. Nokia can fight longer and harder then Apple (and Apple are not known for winning a lot of law suits).

So if no one is clearly right, he with the most money and lawyers wins, Nokia has expert legal teams in every major western nation, more capital and more liquid assets. Apple will not survive a true onslaught, so to use the GP's analogy, Apple may be able to swing a log but Nokia can drop an entire forest.

Re:This is not going to end well

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the latter. Nokia submitted multiple patents that make up the GSM protocol, The GSM Association gets the rights to re-license the GSM package to any and all who would like to implement it. Fees are charged and the Association splits it up among the patent owners. Nokia was ok with this as long as no one else was making more money on their technology than they were. Now they want to charge Apple more for their portions of the GSM protocol.

Apple's claim is if Nokia wants to do this for their patents then it will do the same for theirs. Like any device that read or write mpeg4 (which uses multiple Apple patents)

Solution! The Associations involved should step in and tell both companies to shut up and go home.

Re:This is not going to end well

[davester666]

Are you sure about this?

It's also been put forward that Nokia is not offering RAND terms to Apple, but rather requiring that Apple cross-license at least it's phone-related patents.

Re:This is not going to end well

[jpmorgan]

I don't know, cross-licensing phone-related patents sounds pretty reasonable.

Re:This is not going to end well

[BronsCon]

put that back in your pants

Re:This is not going to end well

[Zxern]

You're right the court won't care, but Apple as a company should at least consider the possibility. 

Re:This is not going to end well

[EvilIdler]

Nokia also made toilet paper. With that experience, they are ready for any coming shitstorm.

Re:This is not going to end well

[Altus]

yes, but they don't have valuable patents ripe for cross licensing

Re:This is not going to end well

[Cwix]

Legal moot in this case, but this case has far reaching consequences which Xest pointed out. Frankly I think you both have valid points.

Re:This is not going to end well

[mjwx]

Apple has a market cap of 188B, 4 times that of Nokia, a P/E ratio about half that of Nokia, greater sales, profit--you pick a financial parameter, AAPL has substantially better numbers than Nokia. So, wtf is your point again?

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).

Re:This is not going to end well

[Shag]

rsmith-mac: There is a price at which Nokia will license their patents - however it looks like they aren't making it available to Apple.
sznupi: Yes, there is a price. I guess the one made available to Apple is very comparable to rules by which other manufacturers play. But Apple wants to have better rules.

[Citation Needed] you two.

Re:This is not going to end well

[hazem]

and the beating each other over the head with teams of lawyers!

Now, if only they'd start using trebuchets to launch lawyers at each other. I'd buy tickets to watch that.

Re:This is not going to end well

[richardkelleher]

Wouldn't we all!

Re:This is not going to end well

[DMiax]

How do you know they did not ask the same to others? Magic eight-ball?

Re:This is not going to end well

[DMiax]

The patent is not on the chips, probably. And the burden of paying the license is to the one that sells to customers, not subcontractor. If Apple want they can get the cash back from Infineon for breach of contract, if the contract mentions possible patents.

Re:This is not going to end well

[julesh]

That's certainly Apple's argument yes, but whether it has any validity is really down to the GSM Association and the courts to decide

It's really just down to the GSMA. Nokia's agreement to licence on RAND terms is with the GSMA; nobody else can enforce that agreement (due to a legal concept called privity of contract) so unless GSMA decide Nokia are in violation, nothing will come of it. I've heard nothing that suggests the GSMA are unhappy with Nokia.

Re:This is not going to end well

[DrunkenPenguin]

Nokia is significantly bigger and richer then apple, roughly by about 4 times.

Absolutely not true. Apple is, in fact more valuable than Nokia and it is also making more profit than Nokia at the moment. Apple's market-value is roughly 147 billion dollars at the moment where Nokia's market-value is only about 50 billion dollars. If Nokia's market-value keeps on sinking like it has been doing for a long time now Apple could soon buy Nokia.

Re:This is not going to end well

[faichai]

They also made Wellington Boots. This gives them +1 shit wading capability. Apple are screwed.

Re:This is not going to end well

[koiransuklaa]

It all depends on the contract, but selling unlicensed tech is very common. After all, the much larger device manufacturer may be able to get the needed licenses from cross-licensing deals much cheaper.

This is one of the reasons the patent systems sucks: it was supposed to give inventors some time to cash in on the invention, but now big companies just use the system to keep new smaller competitors out.

Re:This is not going to end well

[dropadrop]

I don't know, cross-licensing phone-related patents sounds pretty reasonable.

Not if the other is only using technologies falling under the RAND terms.

Re:This is not going to end well

[Sandbags]

Others were happy to license, under RAND, but nokia insisted not only on higher than normal RAND fees, but also a cross licensing deal. instead, apple created their own IP around Nokia's patents, combined with leveraging the actual chips from 3rd paties who already had the licensing rights including resale and remanufacture. Apple also challenged some of the patents as obvious or unpatentable ideas and simply refused to pay the hiked rates nokia insited on.

I've gone through the bulk of patents Nokia is claiming they hold, and they are weak in most cases, or related to components apple did not themselves design or make and are licensed properly by others who sold apple those chips. On the counter, Apple has strong and clear patents they're throwing back at nokia, at least one of which has already been upheld in court. Apple's patents also hold a much higer per-device license fee than even the GMS liucenses nokia is throwing around. What i can find NO links to is what Nokia has lobbed back... Between Apple, Intel, NeXT, BSD, and Open Source code bases, I can't imagine much in their system that's both patentable, and not already owned by one of those...

Re:This is not going to end well

[intheshelter]

Apple has NO debt, tons of CASH. Are you telling me Nokia is going to sell their fabrication plant to fight with Apple? Try and keep your argument relevant to the topic, ok?

Re:This is not going to end well

[Xest]

I'm not really sure what you were asking for a citation for specifically, but I assume it's the numbers. My numbers are a fair rough overestimate estimate based on Apple's own sales figures, this press release is a fairly good starting point:

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/04/22results.html

From Apple's own press release, as of March 2009 they sold at least 17 million iPhones combined, however conveniently fail to mention sales in the quarter September 2008 to January 2009 which suggests the sales were less than the following quarter which they did announce figures for, however to give them the benefit of the doubt again, even if they did sell more let's give them 4 mill it's still own 21 mill. 40 mill is admittedly a bit of an overestimation as it's unlikely they've roughly doubled their 2 year unit sales in 10 months, however in things like this I prefer to slightly overestimate to give the benefit of the doubt.

You'll note in their release the first gen iPhone only shifted around 7 million units and about 10.8 million units of the 3G by March 28th 2009. It's unlikely the 3G broke 15 mill at that rate by the time the 3GS arrived. 10 - 15 mill is a fairly sizeable overestimate for the iPhone, a fair estimate for the 3G and certainly a fair estimate for the 3GS also. The increase sales for the 3G over the classic iPhone are mostly down to the fact that the 3G was when the iPhone truly became available globally so effectively the increase is just the additional global sales rather than an increased speed of adoption on some per-territory basis. Adoption has been pretty flat in this respect.

Re:This is not going to end well

[Xest]

Infineon almost certainly does have a license, but that license won't cover Apple, only infineon's ability to produce the chips and sell them. The license has to be owned by whoever is making use of the patented technology, not just the company that initially makes use of it. It's not like transferable software licenses in this respect.

Re:This is not going to end well

[intheshelter]

Shut up already citation whiner. A citation isn't needed, it's WANTED.

Re:This is not going to end well

[Weezul]

Nokia might not be obligated to offer RAND terms to Apple because Apple is not a member of the GSM Association. Another GSM Association member could likely force Nokia to license these patents under RAND, but ...

Guess what? Nokia's first offer was a cross licensing deal. Apple refused! So now every GSM Association member thinks "Apple will sue us over their shitty interface patents."

Re:This is not going to end well

[Weezul]

Nokia's first offer was a cross licensing deal. Apple refused! So now every GSM Association member thinks "Apple will sue us over their shitty interface patents." Oops!

I expect the GSM Association will ignore Nokia's FRAND obligations with respect to Apple, thanks to Apple's behavior here.

Apple has been acting like a spoiled little child ever since they entered the phone market. I'm sure the big players will happily flush them down the toilet.

Re:This is not going to end well

[dgatwood]

Very much so.

Re:This is not going to end well

[tigga]

There are reasons Apple market capitalization is higher, for example those numbers -

Here from finance.yahoo.com :

AAPL

Profit Margin (ttm): 15.61%

NOK

Profit Margin (ttm): 1.25%

AAPL

Return on Assets (ttm): 10.25%

NOK

Return on Assets (ttm): 4.12%

AAPL

Return on Equity (ttm): 23.35%

NOK

Return on Equity (ttm): 4.04%

AAPL

Qtrly Revenue Growth (yoy): 25.00%

NOK

Qtrly Revenue Growth (yoy): -19.80%

Apple is fast growing company in crisis, Nokia, on the other hand is not growing (blame on crisis?). Pick your numbers ;)

Re:This is not going to end well

[Anonymous Coward]

>>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).

"Real" assets? The 19th century called and they want their economic model back. You most certainly can raise money against IP. Doesn't this whole topic revolve around the strength of the respective IP portfolios of Nokia and Apple?

>>Market Cap is built upon the almighty Imaginary Dollar (!$)

Whoa, strong argument there. Here's a clue, there is no such thing as intrinsic value--all value is market value. The value of your Euros, gold, zloty, or wampum, assuming you have any, is just as "Imaginary".

>>In addition to this, Nokia already has the experience and expertise.

What does this even mean?

Let's look at your original arguments, shall we.

>>Apple are not known for winning a lot of law suits

Citation? Compared to Nokia? And since each case is specific to the facts, how is this even relevant?

>>Nokia has expert legal teams in every major western nation

As does every single international corporation, including Apple, whether inhouse or outside counsel. Relevance?

>>more capital and more liquid assets

Not significantly more than Apple, even by your 2008 numbers. And, do you think that either company, let alone their shareholders, will really allow a significant fraction of their assets to be spent on such a fight? Well, apparently you do. Maybe it will come down to who can borrow the most after their tens of billions in cash are depleted.

>>Nokia is significantly bigger and richer then apple, roughly by about 4 times. ...Apple may be able to swing a log but Nokia can drop an entire forest.

The numbers you provided are roughly equivalent, in any case none being anywhere near 4 times greater for Nokia than Apple.

In fact, the only number I can find where Nokia is about 4 times greater than Apple is in number of employees (123,347 vs 34,300). Are you suggesting that in a battle between international companies over IP, headcount is a significant factor? Will Nokia be employing the "footman rush"? http://classic.battle.net/war2/water/plan.shtml

>>So if no one is clearly right, he with the most money and lawyers wins

I forwarded your detailed analysis to Apple's legal team who are now crying in their mums' skirts. The tyrant Jobs will issue a public surrender forthwith. Also, grateful king Nokia will be issuing you lands in the north and estates in the south.

Re:This is not going to end well

[fzammett]

You're assuming here that the legal system is the be-all, end-all of things. You're 100% right, in a *LEGAL* sense, no one else can (greatly) influence THIS case... that doesn't mean they can't influence THIS case :)

What I mean is simply that things happen in dark back-rooms of industry all the time that impact court cases... maybe a group of large companies quietly tells Apple "you either throw this case or we're going to do X, Y and Z, which will be A LOT worse for you". Now, I'm not smart enough to dream up all the various scenarios that could be outlined, but you get the gist: you can influence any court case in underhanded ways... ways that will, to the untrained eye, seem completely unrelated.

Just because novelists and screenplay writers dream up things like this for a living doesn't mean that they don't happen in real life too :)

Re:This is not going to end well

[GasparGMSwordsman]

...maybe a group of large companies quietly tells Apple "you either throw this case or we're going to do X, Y and Z, which will be A LOT worse for you".

We have words for that, its called blackmail, also, violations of anti-trust laws.

Again, I NEVER said that out side parties would not have an interest in this case, or that they would not want Apple to not use these patents. However, Apple is looking at loosing a substantial amount of money here. We are talking conservatively at more than 1 out every 100 dollars Apple makes in revenue. That is A LOT of money. That also does not count punitive damages.

Punitive damages in this case could exceed Apple's gross revenue for 2009. That is a very large amount indeed. Remember, currently Nokia is claiming that EVERY Apple product is infringing.

This is a situation where Apple would have to weigh what would be more to its advantage, make some COMPETITORS to Apple uneasy verses loosing a whole year of income, or at very least more than a percentage point. Given the accusations and Apple's legal history, I would expect that they don't back down.

Re:This is not going to end well

[ericvids]

Try using logic next time.

'Love to.

Given:
A: Nokia's patents are enforceable.
B: Every other manufacturer has been licensing Nokia's patents.

Grandparent post says A implies B.

Parent post says GP post is wrong, because B does not imply A.

So? Grandparent never claimed that B implies A; only that A implies B. Parent doesn't exactly get to say "Try using logic next time" without shooting himself in the mouth.

Re:This is not going to end well

[sulliwan]

You mean this won't end well for Apple, surely? Apple doesn't invent anything, it just takes technologies others have invented and puts them in shiny boxes.

Re:This is not going to end well

[kernelphr34k]

What are you talking about, the patent system is broke and has been for a number of years. It's what Big name company has the most $$ gets their patents no matter IP or not. With the recent incident that IBM patented the Resolution of abbreviated text in an electronic communications system . WTF is that all about? Really?

Re:This is not going to end well

[sg_oneill]

Eh. It might not be so bad. Patents suck balls, but the mutual mexican stand off between IBM and Microsoft over OS patents (Both have enough to take each other to the cleaners) has meant that Microsoft cant sue 'linux' (directly, note the SCO scenario) and IBM cant sue microsoft directly. Both face huge retaliation danger, so both more-or-less do nothing.

The problem is more the patent troll companies like EOLAS.

Solution: Get rid of the ability to patent math and code!

Re:This is not going to end well

[BasilBrush]

I'm not really sure what you were asking for a citation for specifically

Sorry, not the numbers. It was the claim that Apple report for all models of iPhone whilst comparing against separate iterations of competitors products (e.g. N95, N96). I don't think that's true. They do group all iPhones together, but they don't make comparisons against individual models of competitors. They generally only comment on their market share vs other manufacturers as reported by analysts such as Gartner or IDC. This is manufacturer and OS level data, not data on model iterations.

I'd be interested in a citation, in case I've missed such a comparison as you describe. But I doubt I have. It's not what Apple do.

Re:This is not going to end well

[Skal Tura]

Nokia's R&D might even dwarf the annual revenue apple is making ...

Nokia does other communication hardware than just mobile phones, for example during the early days of xDSL Nokia's routers were everywhere...

Re:This is not going to end well

[Skal Tura]

Reasonable... Apple would get so insanely good deal if they get access to most Nokia's patents. Nokia's phone related patents count has to be quite phenomenal... what you should expect for the #1 mobile maker in the world, and #1 mobile R&D company

Re:This is not going to end well

[Skal Tura]

GSM Association would have that power over Nokia? Doubtfull, Nokia being the company mostly responsible for GSM Association to exist in the first place ... No Nokia's GSM R&D in the early days, No GSM Association....

Re:This is not going to end well

[Skal Tura]

The counter-sue is just a smokescreen PR, the dog which barks is the dog which got hit and so forth.

Re:This is not going to end well

[Skal Tura]

or Apple isn't willing to pay.

Re:This is not going to end well

[Weezul]

Not necessarily. Nokia's FRAND obligations may permit them to require cross-licensing deals, but that doesn't stop Nokia from granting the licenses for less and/or cross-licensing with companies that own no valuable IP. I don't think anyone in the thread knows those FRAND obligations, but yes Nokia's lawyers know them better than anyone else.

I think the two important points are :

(1) Apple has inadvertently indicated that they plan on suing other companies, presumably over multi-touch patents, which will now make Apple's case harder no matter Nokia's FRAND obligations.

(2) Nokia is now suing Apple over GSM patent violation in non GSM products, making any FRAND obligations irrelevant. Apple is suing Nokia over similarly broad patents. It sounds like both companies better suck it up and work out a deal.

Re:This is not going to end well

[obeythefist]

Huh, that's like saying "Well Microsoft bundled MSIE with Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000, XP and Vista, so bundling MSIE with Windows 7 is therefore reasonable behaviour."

Or, reductio ad abdsurdum, "Nokia murdered every other member of my family, so I consider it reasonable to allow them to murder my little brother too."

Just because other companies were pushovers doesn't mean the one company that isn't a pushover is somehow in the wrong.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[MightyMartian]

These appear to be patents against actual physical technologies, so it ain't the same thing as software patents. But please, do continue to show what a fucking retard you are.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[betterunixthanunix]

No, I will continue my anti-patent stance, thanks. I hope these suits result in a massive reform of the patent system, but I have a feeling I will be disappointed.

Mutually assured destruction...

[Derekloffin]

I highly suspect Apple will soon pull out their patent portfolio and this will quickly turn into a total mess. Oh well, bound to happen sooner or later.

Re:Mutually assured destruction...

[betterunixthanunix]

I hope they do, it would serve as a great lesson about the patent system.

Re:Mutually assured destruction...

[Bigjeff5]

I imagine a patent battle playing out like one of those weird anime card battles:

Apple: I summon... Multitouchscreen patent level three!
Multitouchscreen patent level three does 50 damage!

Nokia: I summon... Wirelessaudiotransmitionoverradio patent level five!
Wirelessaudotransmitionoverradio patent level five does 120 damage!

I mean I don't know what the actual patents are, but that seems to be the way it works.

Re:Mutually assured destruction...

[mjwx]

Apple: I summon... Multitouchscreen patent level three!

Attack fails, damage to Apple 3M

Re:Mutually assured destruction...

[shutdown -p now]

Actually, it may be a good idea.

To remind, Monopoly (the board game) - or rather, its immediate predecessor - was originally created by a socialist to highlight the negative effects of, well, monopoly. Perhaps something like that could be created for patents as well.

Dear Nokia

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Nokia,

I hope you can show clear proof that you've continually tried to engage Apple - throughout the production of each of their infringing products ... to re-iterate your position. If you have not, I hope you LOSE this case. If you did, you deserve to WIN this case. Failure to protect your patents until they are well established should be automatic disqualification of a patent.

Sincerely,

The Internet Community

Re:Dear Nokia

[Monkeedude1212]

Agreed. MPU

Re:Dear Nokia

[rtb61]

Technically Apple makes very little of anything and contract most everything out. Sure they design the overall look and feel and select the major components and how they are to be connected, but they don't make or even assemble it. Surely these suits should in reality be targeted at manufacturers and not resellers. Technically it could be said that Apple contracted those works in good faith, upon the basis that the manufacturers were entitled to the design concepts incorporated in their products.

Re:Dear Nokia

[Bigjeff5]

That would be the case if Apple were fitting off the shelf components into their devices. This is not the case. In the patent world, it is the design that infringes, it doesn't matter who actually assembles the product. It only matters who designed and commissioned the infringing product.

For example, if I have a thousand T-shirts made with another companies logo on them, I'm the one infringing the trademark, not the company that screen printed the shirts. It's the same thing here.

Re:Dear Nokia

[rickb928]

I get your point.

If the facts are what they appear, and I were on the jury, I would probably find for Nokia.

I might only want to award damages from now on, however. The past few years of infringments that were not challenged, well, let's call that water under the bridge.

Unless I think that a massive award would result in licensing agreements and the parties deciding to not collect, in which case it hardly matters what I award. Actually, I bet it rarely does. If a jury awards $10B to Novell from SCO, obviously SCO isn't going to PAY it - they can't. So award them 3x the loser's net worth and call it a day. Let the vultures pick the bones. Unless it wasn't really worth that much,and then you get to do math.

Wow. Jury duty may, in fact, be just like Grade School. That is sad...

Re:Dear Nokia

[aztracker1]

Well, the mfg is overseas where it isn't protected, so it's limited to either A) sue apple, and/or B) prevent the phones from being imported until licensing is worked out... I'd go for A and B myself. :) Go Android! (this isn't meant as a troll)

Re:Dear Nokia

[Buelldozer]

Nokia has been "protecting its patents" all along, through cross-licensing agreements with the handset manufacturers. It's know for fact that they've been engaging Apple in talks since at least last spring. It was likely earlier than that.

So dear Anonymous Coward, I don't know what the point of your post was.

Re:Dear Nokia

[mjwx]

That would be the case if Apple were fitting off the shelf components into their devices.

But they are, they are using Infineon transmitters, with an off the shelf ARM processor on board designed and manufactured by Foxconn.

Does this mean ...

[jsnipy]

Does this mean that Steve Jobs will also lose person of the decade?

Ah THAT approach...

[Servaas]

The old "All your base are belong to us" way of technology progression.

Software patents

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Link?

[stewbacca]

I clicked the link and got six sentences. Is this what qualifies as slashdot newsworthy these days?

Re:Link?

[Midnight Thunder]

I clicked the link and got six sentences. Is this what qualifies as slashdot newsworthy these days?

So you're the one reading the articles!

Re:Link?

[stewbacca]

Oh, I didn't read it. I just counted sentences.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[Waffle Iron]

or are they going to make excuses about how this is okay because it's going after Apple

It may not be ok, but it sure is ironic. So Ha Ha Ha Ha.

However what I just said is irrelevant. At the end of the day, these two companies will undoubtedly just do a broad ranging cross-licensing agreement like most big tech players. That will further serve to stifle any potential future competition from people who are not in the cabal of giants protected by their mutual patent moats.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[sjames]

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 :-)

Give me the recipe for the iPhone cake or else..

[c4t3y3]

http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/apple-countersues-nokia-for-infringing-13-patents/

Apple says Nokia's patents aren't actually essential to GSM / UMTS, denies infringing them, and says they're invalid and / or unenforceable anyway. Apple also says Nokia wanted unreasonable license terms for the patents, including a cross-license for Apple's various iPhone device patents as part of any deal, which Apple clearly wasn't willing to do.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[maxume]

Are you going to stab your next victim, or are you going to shoot them?

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it ok to patent something physical, but not ok to patent software? I have never understood the distinction.

Is the work done by an electirical engineer more difficult than that done by a software engineer? Is it more valuable? Why is it ok to patent the implementation of an algorithm in hardware but not ok to patent the implementation of the same algorithm in software?

This is not a troll post, I legitimately do not understand why the distinction should be between hardware and software. Isn't it better to just have the distinction be between good and non-obvious vs bad and obvious? Do we say that all software patents should be invalid simply because of obvious patents like amazon's one click? Isn't that a problem with the obviousness criteria and not the underlying makeup (be it software or hardware) of the patent?

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[EvilNTUser]

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?

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[binarylarry]

Shouldn't you be posting on bingdot.com or whatever the fuck Microsoft's Slashdot clone is called?

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[LandDolphin]

(If Apple used Nokia Patents without Authorization) Does Apple have no blame for using and profiting off another companies R&D?

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[rkit]

Most probable scenario: cross license deal.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Software engineering is done by writing code, and should be afforded protection under copyright laws, not patents.

A huge cornerstone of many open source licenses depend on their work being copyrightable, and not patentable.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[DMiax]

Nokia has the largest market share, why do they have to catch up? The real thing is that Apple has to catch up and probably has used tecnology owned by Nokia illegally.

And at least on Slashdot we should value Nokia's hardware patents a little more than software patents. They spent real money on research. On the contrary, patenting "do something on user click" is not really that useful for the progress of human race...

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[Catiline]

Why is it ok to patent something physical, but not ok to patent software? I have never understood the distinction.

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.]

Sell your Nokia shares.

[jcr]

Litigation is a poor substitute for competition. Nokia's grasping at straws here, because they know that when the iPhone gets down around the $50 price point, they're toast.

-jcr

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[DMiax]

It's bound to happen, just after the macbook drops below 800$...

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[Bigjeff5]

I hate to break it to you, but Nokia's global market share is several times greater than that of their nearest competitor, it is up about 25% (39% share vs 52% this year) from last year, and it's about 477 times greater than Apple's share (0.11%) of the cell phone market.

Even RIM has about 25 times greater market share than Apple. Frankly, as popular as the iPhone is (4% of the smartphone market), it is peanuts when put in perspective.

http://stats.getjar.com/statistics/

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[Snarkalicious]

Hope yer not hangin out waiting for that to be the price sans 2yr carrier contract. Apple has no call or need to drive prices that low.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[Bigjeff5]

I forgot to mention, the top 16 most popular cell phones in the world are Nokias, with a combined 30% of the market. That's just until another manufacturer's device pops onto the list. Nokia has 25 of the top 29 most popular cell phone models in the world, and the iPhone is still a ways down on that list, right in there with the Sony-Ericsson G700, W380, and a half dozen Nokias.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[Princeofcups]

Litigation is a poor substitute for competition. Nokia's grasping at straws here, because they know that when the iPhone gets down around the $50 price point, they're toast.

-jcr

Absurd. Apple has always catered to the higher end market, and has never brought any product down to the low end. When phones similar to the iPhone are selling for $50, then Apple will already be on the next next generation at about the same price point.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[93 Escort Wagon]

Nice little unbiased comment from jcr there. jcr@mac.com... mmm

Says the guy who's too afraid to attach a name to his comment.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[nxtw]

No. The statistics on that page are not actual market share statistics, but are collected by counting web traffic from certain mobile websites. These kinds of statistics probably underestimate the usage of iPhone, Android, WebOS, and other phones that come with full web browsers, since these devices need not use specially designed mobile websites.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[Bigjeff5]

Did you actually check the site? Cause it's gone.

Besides, I'd assume Apple.edu is meant for educational (students & teachers) people only, which doesn't really count.

According to Apple the Macbook is $999, or $949 with the educational discount.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[nxtw]

No, your statistics are measuring web traffic to certain mobile websites, including those that provide J2ME apps - which would be significantly biased towards J2ME-only phones and biased towards phones with J2ME capability.

Nokia is actually losing market share, both overall and in the smartphone market. RIM and Apple's sales are growing in the smartphone market, but Apple is really close to RIM (see the third link). Nokia is losing low-end market share to Korean manufacturers in particular (Samsung and LG).

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[dangitman]

I hate to break it to you, but Nokia's global market share is several times greater than that of their nearest competitor, it is up about 25% (39% share vs 52% this year) from last year, and it's about 477 times greater than Apple's share (0.11%) of the cell phone market.

And yet, Nokia's profits are way down. You don't go in to business for marketshare, you go into business to make a profit. Guess who does a better job on that front?

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[jcr]

Wow. From a guy with an @mac.com address, I'd have expected you to know Apple's pricing strategy by this point.

You can get an iPhone 3G for $100 now. Go look up what the original iPhone sold for. For extra credit, look up the pricing history of the iPod.

-jcr

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[Bigjeff5]

I never said they were, and that point is pretty much irrelevant to the patent war going on between the two.

However, since you brought it up, Nokia has a little over 40% of the worldwide smartphone market, RIM has not quite 20%, and Apple has a little over 10% of the market. Nokia has been losing ground in smartphones, but they are still the behemoth, and Apple in particular hasn't been hurting them nearly as bad as RIM has (19.5% up from 10.9% last year).

The smartphone accounts for about 12% (and slowly rising) of the overall cell phone market, of which Nokia has been and continues to dominate.

My point was that Nokia is the big boy in this fight, not Apple, and it's true no matter what statistics you may wish to cherry-pick.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[sznupi]

S40 platform (the non-Symbian, non-"smarthpone" one) has Webkit browser for some time now. And multitasking comparable to that in the iPhone (generally one up, though that doesn't include music player or phone features)

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[sznupi]

It was a one time write-off of Siemens Nokia venture. Nokia is the only hugely profitable cellphone manufacturer (other are out of the market, struggling, or cellphones aren't their main product; RIM might be an exception, though they sell corporate service more than phones)

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[sznupi]

Actual stats are not much different. Nokia 39%, Samsung 17%, Sony Ericsson 9%, Motorola 8%, LG 8%. Apple hardly registers. At least they are visible in "smartphones"* (what, 15% of total market?) with 14% there...but where Nokia dominates even more, having 50%.

*explain to me why iPhone is called a smartphone while Sony Ericsson "feature phones" - not (they even have full multitasking). Or S40 Nokia phones for that matter (multitasking similar to iPhone, limited to audio player/phone features)

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[dangitman]

Nokia is the only hugely profitable cellphone manufacturer (other are out of the market, struggling, or cellphones aren't their main product;

And how long do you think that's going to last? It's only a matter of time before Nokia is in the same boat. This is the reason that the industry is so desperate to emulate Apple. They need a new business model, and Apple has found one.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[sznupi]

Nokia model is very much sustainable. A year ago there were 3 billion mobile phones subscribers. Now there are around 4.6 billion, and rising rapidly (in which Nokia is a dominating force). All of them sooner or later will want to have new mobile phone of course.

Apple...doesn't even want to target 90% of the market.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[dangitman]

Now there are around 4.6 billion, and rising rapidly (in which Nokia is a dominating force). All of them sooner or later will want to have new mobile phone of course.

But why would those people specifically want a Nokia? There's very little that differentiates Nokia from other brands - so those customers might choose to switch to a cheaper Chinese knock-off. If they don't go for the cheap Chinese knock-off, they probably want something with nice software, like an iPhone or Android model.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[nxtw]

Nokia's market share overall has been falling, and Samsung and LG's growing.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[snero3]

Are we talking about the same company. I am not an anti apple person I own a PB and PM but never have apple products been cheap. They _ALWAYS_ sell at a premium compared to similar products in the market.

It looks like these are patents for hardware that the rest of the industry already pays royalties for. This smells like Apple trying to treat itself differently from everyone else not the currently market leader "grasping at straws"

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[Buelldozer]

The iPhone isn't getting down to a $50 price point anytime soon. It's quite possible that the Universe will expire from heat death before it happens.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[sznupi]

They want a Nokia. You can't argue with that. Especially while not seeing strengths typical in Nokia product which are more important to most of the planet than "nice software".

Insanely great battery time and reception, sturdiness, low price, features ;) (sorta - large part of Nokia phones has LED flashlight adequate in most circumstances, for example)...even good UI (certainly as far price constraints and the devices being phones go). iPhone or Android don't even want to target majority of the market.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[mdwh2]

Indeed - when pigs fly, Apple will be successful.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[Bigjeff5]

The iPod line is one of the most expensive music players on the market, have you actually looked? Its big selling points are the easy interface and iTunes, definitely not price. Go to walmart and have a looksee for yourself. You'll find a half dozen players for much cheaper than the equivalent iPod.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[mdwh2]

Apple don't have a smart phone either.

And even on smart phones, Nokia are still at 40%.

They are talk and text phones with WAP browsers.

You do realise that the vast majority of phones these days do far more than that (i.e., they do Internet, email, web browsing, apps, touch screens and basically all what the Iphone does)? Yet they still get categorised as "feature phones" instead of "smart phones".

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[Bigjeff5]

That is $100 if you commit to a 2 year agreement running close to $100 a month. It still retails at around $500.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[mdwh2]

The only Ipod at the low end is the Shuffle, which is a joke. No options other than random play, and only offering 1GB to say the Sandisk Sansa's 8GB (which also has an expandable microSD slot).

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[Rakarra]

Price of the unit really isn't that important -- if anything, the unit purchase price is a loss leader. It's the 2-year contract that is incredibly expensive, and that's where the real money is made.

While Apple/AT&T certainly charge a premium on that, they're not much more than other "smart phone" plans. They're all ridiculously pricey.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[mjwx]

Litigation is a poor substitute for competition. Nokia's grasping at straws here, because they know that when the iPhone gets down around the $50 price point, they're toast.

Yeah, I'm sure Nokia is quacking in its boots, unless you meant that the value of the US dollar is going to increase 16 fold, as that's the only way you'll get an iphone for US$50 carrier free.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[jcr]

Correction - they wanted a Nokia, when Nokia had a strong brand name allure, and strong product offerings. That's not the case anymore.

Bingo. Anyone else remember when the Motorola RAZR was the hot product?

-jcr

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[sznupi]

I can't believe this...don't you understand that you're looking from a point of view of a very atypical market? This is evidenced by you judging their UI by the current state of Symbian, for example...it's a drop in the bucket of what Nokia offers (and BTW considering that it's geared for cheap devices, with a UI continuity with S30/S40 and with a premiere a long time ago...it isn't doing so bad, with 50% of smartphone sales)

Customers want Nokia - because Nokia is still, as we speak, the most bought mobile phone brand in the world - that's just a simple fact that's not going away no matter what cognitive blindfold you are willing to wear.

Nokia does have user-friendly interface, at the least as far devices which are thought mostly as phones go. And they are improving Symbian, so when the world at large will be ready for smartphones (that includes really affordable handsets), Nokia might be too. They certainly were at each of previous major shifts in mobile phones.

You haven't dealt much with Nokia mobile phones (no, not your Symbian Nokia smartphone, it's not the mainstream class of devices I'm talking about) if you think you can get features I mentioned almost anywhere.

Lasty...that's a very curious definition of failure, having 50% of the smartphone market. I want to have such failures all my life!

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[sznupi]

RAZR was the hot product only because US carriers wanted castrated phone and Nokia wasn't willing to provide it.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[Angst Badger]

Nokia's grasping at straws here, because they know that when the iPhone gets down around the $50 price point, they're toast.

When the iPhone gets down to the $50 price point, it will be because other manufacturers' offerings are sufficiently competitive with the iPhone to force its price down, and insofar as a considerable part of the iPhone's success, like the iPod's, is that it's fashionable, getting down to the range where it's the default throwaway free phone will destroy its exclusive cachet. Despite considerable effort to the contrary by the major players, the mobile phone market is still quite competitive. There's no overwhelmingly dominant single player, and there's not likely to be one any time soon.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[gnasher719]

The only Ipod at the low end is the Shuffle, which is a joke. No options other than random play, and only offering 1GB to say the Sandisk Sansa's 8GB (which also has an expandable microSD slot).

The expandable microSD slot actually reduces the number of purchasers. To most people, it is something that they don't understand, and that they fear, and that they expect to cause trouble. They also expect to pay money for it, so the music player itself without the unwanted feature must be worth less than the asking price.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[graffic]

"Nokia does have user-friendly interface" .... I guess the only good thing is all Nokia phones use the same charger. Well at least the "old" and the "new".

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[jisatsusha]

Universities get a much higher discount than high schools, but in order to see the prices, you have to be logged in from a university network. For comparison, Macbook Pro:

Normal price, £899.

Further education (think high school) price, £845.25, ~6% discount.

Higher education (think college) price, £772.80, ~14% discount.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[Sandbags]

MacBook 13" with education discount was $728 yesterday...

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[cheekyboy]

Nokia arent that good, they have made really stupid UI mistakes. Like not showing the time of rec sms in the sms list view (S40).

Also their S40 media player sucked, couldnt FF/RW videos. Idiots.

Im also sick of their 30 rechargers schema.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[mdwh2]

Sorry you're quite right, it was 2GB I saw alongside a Sansa at 8GB. And I could have got a whopping 4GB if I'd paid extra for the Shuffle. Apple are sure catching up!

Let me guess - the only thing you do know about any Apple product is that you hate it.

Ah, the classic Apple myth - if someone doesn't use an Apple product, it can only be out of some irrational hatred.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[mdwh2]

Indeed, and that just shows you how stupid most buyers are, and confirms the idea that people buy Apple because they're expensive, not in spite of it.

Note that the Sansa's SD slot is purely an optional extra - it works fine with the 8GB of internal memory, which is already double what the largest Shuffle offers anyway. Also if this was really true, why are card slots so common for phones and cameras? I find it odd that mp3 players so rarely have them, when surely they're the one device where expandable memory is most useful... (My music collection grows with time. The amount of required space on my camera is constant, because photos get copied to computer or printed; and the only reason I'd need expandable memory on a phone is for playing music anyway.)

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[aristotle-dude]

Like what? Give us examples which cannot or has not been accomplished with a third-party app?

Your comment is pretty nebulous. Give us solid examples that are relevant to North American "and" European markets.

Re:Sell your Nokia shares.

[LordVader717]

Not true. While you might find a few examples of an alternative being cheaper, one of the most consistent feature of the numerous iPod iterations is that they consistently undercut devices with a comparable feature set when they're released. Every year they improve yet they keep getting cheaper. That's why Microsoft failed so spectacularly with the first Zune. They released what they thought was a competitive player, but within months Apple had slashed their prices and was gearing up to release their new nano, the iPod touch and the new iPod classic, all of which whooped the Zune's ass.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[Anonymous Coward]

These are not physical as you can kick them. They are physical as Nokia in Nokia has actual product using them. Nokia has actually developed heaps of technology because they were very early to market (GSM, UMTS, etc were to a large extent developed by Nokia and Ericsson), so the patents cover a lot of actual technology that's widely used.

Nokia spent heaps of money developing many of the technologies that make cell-phones work, and the rest of the industry has to pay to make of for the R&D. That way everybody gets better products; Nokia has an incentive to do the R&D because they can make back the money and the rest because they can purchase the technology cheaper.

This is an excellent example of why the patent system was developed; everybody benefits by allowing Nokia patents on their technologies.

As for Apple... Multi-touch... Well, I've worked with that for almost a decade now...

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[GasparGMSwordsman]

Since Nokia has not stated WHICH patents Apple has infringed, exactly how do either of you know if they are for physical or business method patents? Next you both start calling each other names? Really?

If you do have a list of which patents are involved I would love to go over them. However I was unable to find any source for that information. Nokia's official response on that question (for all sources I could check) was to the effect of, "we don't comment on the details of pending litigation."

The real matter at hand is that Nokia makes the items it patents, therefor they are not a patent troll.

The devil is in the details however, as the two companies start legal proceedings who ever is more wrong will end up paying the other in some way. Notice I said, "more wrong." My guess is that both companies do in fact, infringe upon each others patents.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[Bigjeff5]

Indeed, the only catagory Apple wins with in smart-phones is in the single-device category, and the blackberry 8300 series (5 devices that are essentially the same phone in different configurations) is just a hair behind the iPhone 3g. RIM has over 40% of the smartphone market, a number Apple can't touch.

Nokia does ok in the smartphone market, but their bread and butter is the general handset market, of which they control more than half of the entire market.

Apple is not the big guy in this battle, Nokia is. Apple has, what, four variations of the same phone? Nokia has thousands. They have been in the business long enough that they may well have a case against Apple computers as well, since a phone is really nothing more than a small computer anyway.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[binarylarry]

You must be new here.

Re:Pathetic

[Night64]

Nokia has a 35% global market share. Not so good in the american market, but, nevertheless, I would not call a company that big pathetic. But as we are talking about free fall, Apple today is down by -1.19%. Nokia is up +0.31%.

Lawsuits

[countertrolling]

Kind of a neat way to maintain high public exposure, but can it be cheaper than regular advertising? Aside from the freebie here on the front page? Only their accountants know for sure.. I gotta admit.. the drama angle plays pretty good.. cliffhangers and everything.

Well, the patent Apple breaks is physical form

[Ilgaz]

I can tell you one patent Apple uses without even turning on iPhone. iPhone has no visible antenna right? Guess who shipped such device first and spent some years to convince people that the external antenna isn't really better than the internal one?

Re:Well, the patent Apple breaks is physical form

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you apple apologists just lazy when it comes to verifying anything "not-apple"? Or do you not do a simple google search because you're scared that apple is in the wrong?

Yes, Nokia does indeed have a patent on the internal antenna

Re:Well, the patent Apple breaks is physical form

[pipedwho]

Mod parent up / grandparent down.

Reason is that too many products existed as prior art (walkie-talkies, etc). They do have some detailed internal antenna patents, but these were mainly superseded by better methods (that are also patented by companies such as Sierra Wireless which did some work for Apple in this area).

Re:Well, the patent Apple breaks is physical form

[russotto]

I can tell you one patent Apple uses without even turning on iPhone. iPhone has no visible antenna right? Guess who shipped such device first and spent some years to convince people that the external antenna isn't really better than the internal one?

You're seriously claiming that an internal antenna is a patentable item? You may have a career as a patent examiner.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[GasparGMSwordsman]

I correct myself. The following is a list of patents Nokia claims Apple infringed upon:

* No. 5, 634, 074 : Serial I/O device identifies itself to a computer through a serial interface during power on reset then it is being configured by the computer
* No. 6, 343, 263 B1 : Real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data
* No. 5,915,131 : Method and apparatus for handling I/O requests utilizing separate programming interfaces to access separate I/O services
* No. 5,555,369: Method of creating packages for a pointer-based computer system
* No. 6,239,795 B1: Pattern and color abstraction in a graphical user interface
* No. 5,315,703: Object-oriented notification framework system
* No. 6,189,034 B1: Method and apparatus for dynamic launching of a teleconferencing application upon receipt of a call
* No. 7,469,381, B2: List scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display
* No.RE 39, 486 E: Extensible, replaceable network component system
* No. 5,455,854: Object-oriented telephony system
* No. 7,383,453 B2: Conserving power by reducing voltage supplied to an instruction-processing portion of a processor
* No. 5,848,105: GMSK signal processors for improved communications capacity and quality
* No. 5, 379,431: Boot framework architecture for dynamic staged initial program load

Of course...

[FatdogHaiku]

You know that deep down, in some manner or another, Microsoft is responsible for this...

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[countertrolling]

But please, do continue to show what a fucking retard you are.

Ah yes.. most insightful, definitely livens things up.. just like the good ol' AOL days :)

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[zippthorne]

Patents are preferable to copyrights for code as patents are of limited duration and copyrights are effectively unlimited.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[aztracker1]

You can't generally patch hardware... so it is, in essence harder. You can create, change a software implementation with ease, and pretty much anything in software isn't unique to those practiced in the art, which belies the other point of patents.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[Omnifarious]

So why does the medium of the patent actually matter?

This is an interesting question, and my take on it is this...

The malleability of the medium has a whole lot to say about the economic cost the patent system imposes on works created in the medium.

As our tools for manipulating the physical world in an automated fashion become more precise, cheaper and more flexible the physical world is going to start having the same kinds of problems with the patent system imposing an unacceptable burden that it currently has with software.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[hairyfeet]

Won't happen, and here is why: It is not in their best interests to risk losing the power that having patent warchests give them against new players attempting to enter the market. So instead what will happen is that after much saber rattling the lawyers from Nokia and Apple will get together and sign a cross licensing agreement covering any and all of the above patents, thus allowing both to keep their patent warchests while Nokia will get a nice check.

Just look at deals between AMD and Intel, ATI and Nvidia, for examples. While we can be sure that with patent warchests as large as the mega companies have that they are no doubt infringing on each others patents in probably hundreds of cases, by signing large CYA cross licensing agreements with each other they can continue business as usual and help to keep out new players. Just as I'm sure that along with that fat 1.25 billion dollar check Intel cut AMD to drop the anti-trust lawsuit there was wording in the settlement that lets AMD not worry about infringing on plenty of Intel patents. It is just the way the big corps roll sadly.

Re:Nope!

[93 Escort Wagon]

If he lost that, he'd clearly be in the running for the peace prize. Even if he did nothing for it.

Thank heavens the Nobel Peace Prize committee is above that sort of silly, mindless motivation!

Market share, where?

[Scareduck]

Nokia has no compelling smart phone offering, and that's where the market is headed. Their current market share -- yes, the largest of any single manufacturer -- is somewhat immaterial on that basis alone.

Re:Market share, where?

[sznupi]

Nokia has also half of smartphone market share. Seems their offering is more compelling than...pretty much any other.

Re:Market share, where?

[cheesybagel]

What, you mean like the N900?

They also have cheaper smartphones like 5530 XpressMusic. You can buy like 2-3 of those for the price of an iPhone 3G/3GS.

Re:Market share, where?

[mdwh2]

What? Try the likes of the 5800, the N97, as well as large numbers of smartphones that existed long before the Iphone was even thought of.

Now, what smartphone does Apple offer? A phone that can't even multitask or do some things that even feature phones can do? That's not a smartphone.

Your reference is Yet Another Pro-Apple Media story. So the biggest phone manufacturer maintains their market share - why is that a bad thing? And a newcomer increases their tiny market share - well what a surprise. Are they related? No they're not. Why does the article only mention Nokia and Apple, and not Samsung, LG, Motorola or RIM? Apple are a niche player, and do not deserve to be mentioned in that article at all - it's an advert. Spam. So stop spamming us.

Re:Market share, where?

[R3d M3rcury]

(widget showing offensive fortunes - is there a one yet?).

Now, you see, this is why Maemo will lose. While you're writing a useless App to show an offensive fortune on the screen, Apple has created SDKs so that iPhone developers can create Apps to play offensive sounds!

In stereo!

Re:Market share, where?

[ianare]

Nokia has no compelling smart phone offering, and that's where the market is headed.

Apparently, half of all people worldwide do not agree with you .

As far as being where the market is headed, its only in those markets which are already saturated (North America, Europe, Japan, Australia), and there are still more normal phones sold there.

Worldwide, the largest new cell phone markets per new units sold will be those in the developing world. China and India alone account for about 40% of the world population.

Nokia will continue to have plenty of new customers for its cheaper offerings.

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[Bigjeff5]

I'd be very surprised if Apple were the big dog in this fight, given that Nokia has been designing and manufacturing cell phones for decades (verses just a couple years for Apple), has a very large patent portfolio in the cell phone realm on such trivial technologies as GSM and the like, and has almost 500 times the cell phone market share that Apple has.

Seriously, Nokia is not just a behemoth in the cell phone realm, it is THE behemoth. Sony-Ericsson, the next largest cell phone manufacturer, has less than 1/3 Nokia's market share.

Also, patent trolling is buying up patents and springing lawsuits on companies when one of them gains sufficient momentum. That is not what Nokia did. Nokia does original research and developement in cell phone technology, it's why they are the largest cell phone manufacturer in the world. Nokia offered licensing terms and Apple didn't like them. Just because Apple doesn't like the terms does not mean they get to ignore the patents. Apples only legal options were to accept the terms or not use the infringing technology, they did neither and now they have been sued.

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[leathered]

Uh Hello? Nokia spend orders of magnitude more money on R&D than the other handset manufacturers. All the other handset makers are happy to pay licensing fees/royalties to them. For some reason Apple thinks it doesn't have to pay those royalties and can incorporate Nokia IP into its products, sorry I meant product, at will.

I despise patent trolls like everyone else here but this looks like a reasonable attempt by Nokia to defend its IP portfolio.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[googlesmith123]

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

Wrong! Nokia wanted to extort Apple.

[motorcyclemaintain]

The issue Apple faces is that the patents Nokia were originally pursuing were patents that every single other mobile manufacturer was happy to license.

Actually no. Nokia wanted Apple to give them much more than "every other single" manufacturer. Nokia wanted to charge Apple 3x the fair and reasonable rate they charged others. They also wanted free access to Apple tech. Here are just a few of Apple's complaints:

Article 81. In Particular, in or about the spring of 2008, Nokia demanded that, as part of it’s compensation for licensing Nokia’s portfolio of purported essential patents, Apple must grant Nokia a license to a particular number of Apple non-standards-essential patents...Apple immediately rejected the proposal and reiterated Apple’s position that Nokia’s F/RAND obligations required it to licence Nokia’s purportedly essential technologies.

Article 82. ...In or about May 2009, Nokia demanded a royalty approximately three times as much as the royalty proposed the prior spring, which was itself in excess of a F/RAND rate, as well as “picks’ to Apple’s non-standards-essential patents.

Naughty Nokia. Go to your room.

Re:Wrong! Nokia wanted to extort Apple.

[sznupi]

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.

Re:Wrong! Nokia wanted to extort Apple.

[Xest]

This is merely Apple's argument, not fact.

Whether the argument is valid is down to the courts, and the GSM association to decide. Even then you may note that in those very quotes Apple themselves note that they were offered a different, much lower figure originally but still refused it citing it was excessive.

So the question for the courts/GSM association is, were the rates every really excessive, or is that just a convenient excuse that Apple has been using to try and actually pay an unreasonably low fee?

Re:Wrong! Nokia wanted to extort Apple.

[R3d M3rcury]

And cross-licensing is what surely any other notable phone tech manufacturer does with Nokia.

And who decides who is a "notable phone tech manufacturer"? Nokia? Isn't that, by it's definition, "discriminatory"?

Re:Wrong! Nokia wanted to extort Apple.

[dachshund]

Even then you may note that in those very quotes Apple themselves note that they were offered a different, much lower figure originally but still refused it citing it was excessive.

A lower figure plus cross licensing rights to non-standards-essential technologies. Which I take to mean as indicating that Nokia wanted to leverage its GSM patens to get access to multi-touch and some other stuff.

The question is: how accurately can the GSM association value patents like multi-touch that have nothing to do with GSM. My guess is that Apple (and other industry players) probably value them very highly. The GSM association may or may not be able to render a fair opinion on that subject.

Re:Wrong! Nokia wanted to extort Apple.

[NimbleSquirrel]

The question is did Apple seek to license the patents before the iPhone was released?

Given that every other manufacturer has licensed these patents (and that they are in respect to a Standard) means that Apple would have known about them when it was developing the iPhone. Did Apple approach Nokia at any stage in the process or did Apple just forge ahead, knowing of a potential infringement, hoping to deal with it at a later point in time? Given Apple's secrecy of projects in development, it wouldn't surprise me if that was one of the main reasons they didn't sort out licensing ahead of time.

Did Apple know about the patents while the iPhone was in development? Did Apple approach Nokia in any way prior to the iPhone's release? Did Apple release the iPhone knowing that it was infringing on on or more of Nokia's patents? If the answer is yes, then arguements over F/RAND terms are rather moot.

Apple's countersuit is a bargaining tactic - an attempt to force Nokia to settle. The most recent filing by Nokia seems to indicate that they are not willing to settle (at least not yet, and any settlement will be under their terms), and that they think they have a good chance. Time will tell, but this is shaping up to be a very interesting case.

Re:Wrong! Nokia wanted to extort Apple.

[JetTredmont]

So, really, you believe the whole industry operates as a trade of cross-licensing without placing dollar values on any of it?

I have a hard time believing that Sony and Nokia and HTC and Palm all agree that these five patents and these seven patents and these thirteen patents each have equivalent values without at some point having said, "The cost for this license is $x; I'll waive it for this list of patents of yours".

If that's indeed how they operate, they have some very ... creative accountants, and, frankly, getting reamed by the new guy on the block is what they deserve. I can't believe that the governments under which they operate and pay taxes would allow such loosey-goosey accounting to persist, and would love to get in on the reaming action themselves.

On the other hand, it's not likely that they really have no concept of a monetary value to their patent exchanges. As a result, "Fair/Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory" has a very specific and concrete meaning, and they either offered this to Apple or they did not.

So, yes, we have Apple's version of things. If they are correct, then Nokia hasn't a leg to stand on. Of course, you would expect this with Apple's side of the story, so we're better off waiting for both sides to have been aired before drawing any conclusions. For all we know, Apple might claim this as a non-F/RAND offer because the historical values of patents have been over-valued to keep out non-patent-rich competitors (which is not an outrageous claim, but hard to prove).

Re:Wrong! Nokia wanted to extort Apple.

[beelsebob]

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.
No, every other notable phone tech manufacturer cross licenses *standards essential* patents with Nokia and pays the same rate.

Nokia wanted apple to pay not only 3 times more, but also license patents that had *nothing* to do with standards.

Re:Wrong! Nokia wanted to extort Apple.

[Tuntematon]

but also license patents that had *nothing* to do with standards.

Apple has GSM standard patents?

Re:Wrong! Nokia wanted to extort Apple.

[beelsebob]

No, they don't, what's your point?

Re:Wrong! Nokia wanted to extort Apple.

[gnasher719]

So, really, you believe the whole industry operates as a trade of cross-licensing without placing dollar values on any of it? I have a hard time believing that Sony and Nokia and HTC and Palm all agree that these five patents and these seven patents and these thirteen patents each have equivalent values without at some point having said, "The cost for this license is $x; I'll waive it for this list of patents of yours".

When you want a standard, which is necessary to make that whole phone business working (because if every phone manufacturer had their own little proprietary protocol, nobody would buy any mobile phones), then all the patent holders have to come together and agree to _something_. Since everyone was developing stuff, it is likely that they developed independently incompatible technologies and patented them. But they need a standard, so they have to agree which technology to use. Obviously nobody would agree to include the competitors patented technology into a standard and make their own patented technology worthless if that gave the competitor an advantage. That's why you end up with standards where all relevant patents are available to everyone at a fair price. If Nokia hadn't agreed to this, then Nokia patents would not have been part of the GSM standard, and we would be using some slightly different methods.

Re:Wrong! Nokia wanted to extort Apple.

[beelsebob]

Wrong

Sony Ericsson: I'd like to get all your designs for your car.
Nokia: Okay, we'd like $10 and all your car designs.
Microsoft: I'd like to get the designs too.
Nokia: Okay, we'd like $10 and all your car designs.
RIM: I'd like to get them too.
Nokia: Okay, we'd like $10 and all your car designs.
Apple: I'd like to get them too.
Nokia: Okay, we'd like $30 and all your submarine designs.
Apple: Kindly fuck off. You have to give us the same terms as you gave everyone else.

Re:Wrong! Nokia wanted to extort Apple.

[beelsebob]

And what should have happened:

Nokia: Okay, we'd like $10 and all your car designs.
Apple: I'd like to get them too.
Nokia: Okay, we'd like $10 and all your car designs.
Apple: But we don't have any car designs!
Nokia: Well, all of none is still none, so we'd like $10. After all, Microsoft and RIM didn't have any car designs to give us either.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

So Nokia owned patents for annoying advertisements and cornering the smug douchebag market?

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[McGiraf]

No, copyrights will not prevent you of implementing similar thing from scratch, patents can prevent you from doing anything similar.

Software patents are more like patenting the idea of a mouse trap rather than a specific apparatus for trapping mouses.

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[aristotle-dude]

Actually, Apple is willing to pay the fair licensing fees established under RAND. What Nokia is demanding is three times that amount as well as access to Apple's patent portfolio.

Nokia is attempting to use their monopoly position to unfairly keep out competition from the handset market.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[dangitman]

Nokia has the largest market share, why do they have to catch up? The real thing is that Apple has to catch up and probably has used tecnology owned by Nokia illegally.

Why does Apple have to catch up? Apple makes a much greater profit margin on every phone sold than Nokia does. Nokia has a high marketshare, but low profits. Seems that Apple is actually winning this one.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[GasparGMSwordsman]

=P

I almost corrected my self. Does anyone have the list of Nokia patents in question?

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[sjames]

True, but there is the hope that patent trolls will sufficiently damage the big corps. The trolls aren't interested in cross licensing.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[gnasher719]

Apple is not the big guy in this battle, Nokia is. Apple has, what, four variations of the same phone? Nokia has thousands. They have been in the business long enough that they may well have a case against Apple computers as well, since a phone is really nothing more than a small computer anyway.

That may be true, but Apple has enough cash to buy a majority in Nokia.

New Apple Product

[besalope]

So will the next Apple product be called the "iSteal.IP?"

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[sznupi]

Nokia wanted three times "that" amount only after Apple declined cross-licensing deal.

Now think for a second; surely deal of other phone tech manufacturers with Nokia (those that are "three times less") must include cross licensing.

Apple is the one who demands non-RAND treating for itself.

Re:What this is really about

[sznupi]

Ah, so Nokia surely doesn't get access to patent portfolios of other phone manufacturers? Under rules which they uniformly deem to be RAND?

Reality Distortion Field is strong today...

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[takev]

one acronym: FPGA
A set of gates of which you can change the connections on the fly.

Current FPGAs are large enough to implement quite large systems with many algorithms. There are even FPGA like devices that work in the analogue domain.

And to be honest, having started designing for an FPGA, it not that more difficult than software. In fact the simulation software for FPGAs includes debugging tools that puts software debugging to shame.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[WiseWeasel]

Have you actually used Maemo? Technically, Maemo is the bee's knees, but as far as usability goes, they have a LONG way to go. Responding to your rhetorical question, it's in Maemo's usability that Nokia has a lot of catching up to do.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[dangitman]

It seems obvious that their profit margins would be higher if they are not paying royalties on all the patents they are using.

That doesn't make any sense. Nokia doesn't pay for the patents it owns, so how could the difference in profit margin be about patents?

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[mdwh2]

Indeed, although even in the smartphone market, Nokia are still at 40% - they are dominant at all levels.

"Smartphone" is ill-defined anyway, and the Iphone doesn't really belong in that category (Apple fans: give me a definition of smartphone that includes the Iphone, but doesn't include most feature phones? It can't even multitask, for god's sake).

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[tyrione]

Too bad I don't have points to mark you as an idiot for posting Apple's Patents and calling them Nokia's.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[mdwh2]

Yep, Apple are successful at selling overpriced products to a niche number of people, and making money from that. News at eleven. This is about as relevant as that ridiculous "Apple are the number one PC seller for really expensive PCs" story we had a while back. I bet Amiga do a good profit too.

But the rest of us are more interested in what 95% of the market are buying, not niche players like Apple.

Apple Copied LG for Iphone G1

[meehawl]

it is the design that infringes

True. That's why it was so amusing to see Apple copying the LG's Prada phone design for the Iphone.

Re:Apple Copied LG for Iphone G1

[Anonymusing]

That's why it was so amusing to see Apple copying the LG's Prada phone design for the Iphone.

FWIW, the Prada was announced December 2006, one month before the iPhone. They had both clearly been in development for awhile -- Wikipedia says the iPhone was in development for at least 2.5 years, though no word on the Prada's development time. Hard to imagine that your assertion is true.

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[sbeckstead]

Unless like Apple you were offered terms that amount to extortion and now get to take it to court ,yeah Apple sort of had a choice. Nokia may do research but they also buy patent portfolios from small companies just to use as bludgeons.

Re:What this is really about

[Bigjeff5]

Apple is not a GSM Association member. They had nothing to do with developing GSM, and so don't have claim to the favorable RAND terms available to GSM Association members.

If Nokia wanted more in exchange for the use of their patents than other GSM patent holders do, then that is their right. If Apple doesn't want to pay Nokia's terms, they need to find a way around the patents. If that's what they did, then Apple will win. If they didn't, well, you don't get to just say "Your patent isn't important" and ignore it.

Claiming that other Apple products violate their patents is just more posturing to try and force a settlement on terms that are very unfavorable to Apple.

That's assuming Apple products don't violate Nokia patents. If they do violate the patents, then Nokia's position is completely legitimate, and Apple refused to license Nokia's patents and went ahead and infringed them.

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[sbeckstead]

If you define happy to pay as "Had no choice cause the patent bludgeon held by Nokia is bigger than ours" then yes they were happy to pay.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[Fahrvergnuugen]

If you haven't noticed, cell phones are slowly but surely morphing into computers. My bet is that the majority of phones sold 5 years from now will be "smart phones" - the area where Apple is currently excelling and Nokia is currently lagging. Being kind of yesterday's technology is pretty meaningless.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[IdleTime]

We stopped talking about MilF's years ago son, we just fuck them these days...

But if you are 14, I guess iMILF's are the only thing you get...

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[Fahrvergnuugen]

I guess it depends on how you define "big dog". Apple's market cap is 188 Billion vs Nokia's 47 Billion.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[jpmorgan]

Uh, no, those are the patents Apple claims Nokia is infringing on. Not the other way around.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[vakuona]

It can multitask. It does that very well. Apple doesn't allow other apps to multitask, and purposely didn't create a way for other apps to because it saves battery, and it prevents apps from taking over the phone.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[tyrione]

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?

~80% of all profits comes from the Smart phone market only. Gee. Who is winning that market? It sure as hell isn't Nokia.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[profplump]

You've long been able to patent processes and not just specific implementations of a process, at least in the US (and possibly other places, I haven't done the research to know). And by "long" I mean "more than a century" -- there was a USSC case involving a process for refining flour that addressed just this distinction (Cochane v. Deemer, 1877). The majority opinion there says "A process may be patentable, irrespective of the particular form of the instrumentality used.”

So what I want to know is why processes implemented in software are different than processes implement in other hardware, bearing in mind that the later have been eligible for patents for at least 132 years. Or if software and hardware implementations of processes aren't different, what in society has changed to that would make us want to overturn our traditional patent rules.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[dangitman]

But the rest of us are more interested in what 95% of the market are buying, not niche players like Apple.

Talk about "News at Eleven"! What an amazing insight you have!

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[v1]

Why is it ok to patent something physical, but not ok to patent software? I have never understood the distinction.

It's a lot easier to patent a specific method or physical design than it is to patent a program. The difficulty is where do you draw the line? Like patenting a song... what if I change a single note, does your patent apply? It's trivial for someone to take a chunk of code and make periodic, trivial changes, such a swapping order of adjacent instructions, and make it physically very different without changing it at all, and that clearly would allow someone to violate your IP if that's all it took.

So having a way to make clear rules is a big factor. For instance, in music it can get down to counting the number of identical notes in a row.

Programming also has other issues that are unique. Given the restrictions of a language, the simpler a task, the fewer ways there are available to you to perform the task. Opportunities for diversity grow rapidly as the code gets more complex, but at the same time those that want to patent their code then tend to want more general interpretation because it becomes increasingly easy to make minor changes to their work and now call it your own. Very basic and very well-known tasks have a single known most-efficient method to code them - such as a bubble sort in C, that any skilled programmer could develop independently. Those must fall into the area of "obvious", which is not patentable.

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[R3d M3rcury]

Why? What patents does LG or Samsung hold that would be of interest to Nokia?

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[ChrisMP1]

No. 7,383,453 B2: Conserving power by reducing voltage supplied to an instruction-processing portion of a processor

Wow. The degree to which this is just pure common sense is astounding. Even after reading the patent, it still seems to me like it says 'conserving power by conserving power'.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[Zordak]

Software patents are more like patenting the idea of a mouse trap rather than a specific apparatus for trapping mouses.

No, both of those are legitimate subject matter for a patent. If you are the first person ever to conceive of the idea of building a trap to catch mice, then you can get a broad patent on mouse traps. If mouse traps are already in the prior art, you can get a patent on your improved mouse trap. Copyright would apply to a diagram or schematic of your mouse trap. A copyright on your schematic would not prevent me from building the trap described by the schematic. It just keeps me from copying the schematic itself. But a patent on your design does keep me from making your mouse trap, regardless of whether or not I actually copy the schematic. Extrapolating out to software is not difficult and is left as an exercise for the reader.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[Artifakt]

I think you're failing to see how the steps in the process differ from physical invention: It's not that software is implemented based on predefined components, it's a question of where creativity is possible in the process (I'm using creativity in a broad sense, to include the word invention itself, and words such as 'originality' and even 'non-obviousness' when they are used to describe the patent process. I'll try to use some of those more specific terms to make this a little clearer).

As post #30588846 put it, the assembly of code is done in preconcieved ways. Someone already built a hardware framework that controls what you can create in software for a given purpose at one set of levels (essentially the bottommost levels - you can't, for example, make a deliberate spelling mistake to make a pun or coin a new word to create something novel and previously unforseen, as the system treats these as mistakes which won't execute). There are many non-obvious but still useful ways to arrange a very complex set of logic gates to make a processor, ergo that is patentable (or some parts of it are). There are no similarly non-obvious ways to arrange assembly language commands - A C, L, or ST, or even an SSCH does what it does, and its permissible uses are all documented. When you program above machine and assembly languages, you can't rearrange these to your own taste, as you can't even normally see them.
        At the next set of levels, someone has created a programming language you are using. Unlike a natural language, it too is a very rigidly defined framework. Some choices may seem to be available, but there is often a precise ranking possible, in that one algorythm may be clearly superior to all others for the purpose. Doing something deliberately different is mostly also doing something deliberately inefficient, against standard, or just plain wrong. At neither of these two sets of levels can you actually do much if anything significantly creative. You also can't protect that level by patent because the legal system already forbids protecting the mathematics on which your work is based, and your implementation is a derivitive work of the sphere of math, so it can't have rights the math itself doesn't have.
      Above that second set of levels, yes programming can be creative. But there, you're describing something similar to writing in a natural language. It's normally already protectable by copyright and so shouldn't gain simultanious protection from patent law. Some choices here are non-obvious, but non-obvious in more like the same way as choosing to use adjectives more sparingly and make the red-headed character be from out of state, not so much non-obvious in the 'tungsten makes a durable filament' manner.
        I'm not saying I actually agree with all this, mind you. I think one of the points of both open ended scripting languages and of OOP is to make genuine creative choice available at deeper levels of the process. But, the court system is thinking of programming mostly as it was 20 or more years ago.
 

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[McGiraf]

no, i was just being a non-native English writer.

j2me Re:This is not going to end well

[bukuman]

A huge range of physical phones can run java j2me based software without needing to determine device configurations etc. Sun says there are about 2.5 Billion j2me/midp enabled handsets out there.

Unfortunately the various carriers then balkanized this 'code once run everywhere' capability in order to try to capture cashflow from developers (independent testing. certification, and signing anyone?) and customers (all the many app stores).

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[Bigjeff5]

Indeed, but since it's a cell phone patent battle, and nokia is far more likely to have patents that Apple infringes upon than vice versa, I say Nokia is the big dog in this case.

How long do you expect to live?

[Roger W Moore]

human beings are a 1 centi-hertz CPU, and US legal precedent excludes any activity they perform unaided from patenting.

Interesting. However Think about the 100s (for the sake of argument only!) it takes to boot an OS. In this time your 3GHz CPU is running approximately flat out (we'll ignore the extra cores). Since a human is a centi-hertz in your estimation one human will require 300,000,000,000 times more time to perform the same operations or just short of 1 million years. So if the task takes far longer than a single human life expectancy is it reasonable to argue that it is a task that a human being can do unaided? Personally I hate software patents but I don't think that you can defeat them with this argument - even if you tweak the numbers it will be hard to get the 5 orders of magnitude which you need.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[BronsCon]

and still maintaining a better grasp of the language than most natives

Re:Give me the recipe for the iPhone cake or else.

[Plekto]

Apple also says Nokia wanted unreasonable license terms for the patents, including a cross-license for Apple's various iPhone device patents as part of any deal, which Apple clearly wasn't willing to do.

That Nokia wanted "unreasonable" license terms still doesn't mean that you can just ignore them because you don't like them. Apple's dead in the water on this one, and Nokia is also large enough to put up a good fight. (It would be like GM suing Audi/VW - one's larger, but both are behemoths compared to most everything else)

Apple has always played fast and loose with IP and has been merciless in exploiting it and defending it - at the same level as Microsoft and the rest of them, in fact, despite their image and PR. The question is how much are they going to fork over before it goes to court and then continue as usual(ie - throw a few hundred million in pocket change at Nokia and go on as if nothing had happened)

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[MightyMartian]

It was like Linus's example during the initial phases of the SCO trial about certain low-level functions, which date back to the earliest days of Unix. He observed at the time that for such functions, there really may only be one way to do things. Considering the vast amount of effort put into basic research in the 1960s by guys like IBM, it's hard to imagine too many concepts that haven't had at least a paper written about them at some point in the last fifty years.

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[thejynxed]

Apple and Quaalcom didn't sign the RAND agreement with the other cell phone industry conglomerates. Quaalcom holds quite a few patents as well in the GSM arena that Apple may be infringing upon. We shall see.

I would think that not signing the (legally-binding) RAND agreement, leaves you excluded from the terms therein, beneficial to you or not, and allows the signers to make you, the non-signer, whatever offer (or non-offer) they so wished, so long as the RAND terms were fairly and equally applied to the other signers.

Let's also not forget SA Fractus, who owns several patents on internal cell phone antennas, and other cell phone technology.

And then there is this patent on internal cell phone/mobile antennas, specifically a 5-band printed (as in, printed directly on the internal system circuit board) planar antenna. This seems to be the most likely type of antenna in use inside the iPhone (I don't have one to tear apart and look, I'd really like to tear apart one of the latest iteration), since the iPhone patents clearly state and show no space in the containing shell for an internal USB-link antenna or a solid monopole antenna, or a separate antenna unit of any kind (in fact, all that seems to be described are the shell, the touch screen interface, the internal rail mounts, and an abstract of the system board).

Wonder if those guys in Taiwan have even gotten a chance to dissect an iPhone, being after all, employees for a university.

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[sn00ker]

Market cap means diddly, really. What matters is revenue and market share if you're talking about the size of a company. Market cap measures value as perceived by shareholders, not influence and sales. Nokia's 2008 revenue, in Euros, was higher than Apple's revenue in US dollars. And I doubt that even a worshipper of the iJobs would argue that Nokia is the unquestionable master of the cellphone world.

As much as anything AAPL is valuable because it's fashionable. It's visible, it has a brand, people want a piece of that brand. Nokia isn't fashionable, it's functional. There's no hype, there's no cult of Nokia, it's just there. Comparing the market cap of Nokia and Apple is a very desperate attempt to pretend that Apple isn't being taken to the cleaners by a company that does only communications equipment (vs computers, phones, media downloads...) and sells more of it than Apple does.

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[shutdown -p now]

Unless like Apple you were offered terms that amount to extortion

There is no obligation on the patent owner to offer to license the patented tech under any terms. He can perfectly well refuse anyone the ability to use the fruits of his research, and be the sole producer of goods that do so. This is by design, by the way, for as long as patent system had been in existence.

who's the big guy in this battle?

[reversible physicist]

In the most recent quarter reported, Apple (with a tiny share of the market) was already making more profit on its iPhone than Nokia was on all of its handsets combined -- both dumb and smart phones. Also, AAPL's market cap is about four times that of NOK. So I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion about who is the big guy in this battle.

Don't Underestimate the Koreans

[meehawl]

the Prada was announced December 2006

The impressive thing about LG's rollouts is how quick they are. The LG was already being shipped by the first week of 2006, and was on sale in Europe before the end of January. That's a full six months before Apple's second attempt at a mobile phone hit the streets, and at least two eons in mobile phone time.

Don't underestimate the Koreans. They also invented the first mp3 player... although a lot of people mistakenly attribute that to Apple as well. (I am not counting Kane Kramer's unique 1980s DAP because they entered public domain and everyone had access to them).

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[EvilNTUser]

I use Maemo every day, and usability is excellent. It may take you a few minutes longer to figure out than the iPhone does, but it's not unintuitive and the task switcher is amazing.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[EvilNTUser]

That's why I mentioned two operating systems. Nokia's yesterday's technology is still dominating market share, and their new line of phones (N900) has been available for about a month.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[haruchai]

Bravo on the double karma - I hope it was unintentional.

Will be interesting to follow.

[miffo.swe]

Most of the Nokia patents are old, non-obvious and already established. Its not like patents on "doing thing x, but this time on the internet!". Why Apple decided to spit in Nokias face i dont really understand. They cant win this one, especially since the US is trying to get software patents acknowledged in the EU. Now is really not the time to play the protectionist game so i dont think political pressure will be put into the courts.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[dkf]

It can't even multitask, for god's sake

Yeah, but neither can Apple Macintoshes, unlike my trusty Amiga 500. Something to do with its handle based heap management I think.

That's not been true since OSX Server came out in 1999 (2002 for the desktop version). Why? Because it's essentially Unix under the hood.

Mind you, if you're still touting your Amiga then you probably don't mind sounding a decade out of date. I'll get off your lawn now.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[bzipitidoo]

This question touches on why I think there should not be monopoly grants at all. No patents for software, and no patents for anything else either. Some inventions that required a mechanical device when filed no longer need that, and can be done entirely on a computer. An example is a 1900 patent on a 24 hour clock. On the other hand, it is difficult to conceive how the immense variety in engines, one of the prime examples of physical devices that do physical work, could all be superceded by a universal device, but the possibility should not be dismissed. But the distinction doesn't matter. All patents hurt innovation regardless. They make the mere activity of innovative endeavor into an excursion through a minefield.

Whether we want something else for both software and hardware innovations is another question. I would rather see some sort of reward system, where inventors want their inventions used and copied and no permissions or blessings or payments needed, because they get bigger rewards regardless, and the users wouldn't have to chance that an idea might be claimed by someone else, because there wouldn't be any licensing fees, taxes, or punitive fines on the use of it. No one would have any sort of authority to deny or tax the use of an idea. No having to waste valuable time seeking out patents and their holders, an activity that could well be infinite in scope, and no having to hope trolls will not surface and sue.

Re:What this is really about

[julesh]

As others have hinted at, this is really about Nokia refusing to license their GSM patents under the RAND terms that are required of GSM Association members, the same license terms that all the other handset manufacturers got from Nokia.

Whether Nokia follow their agreement with GSMA or not is a matter between Nokia and GSMA. Apple have no grounds to complain, because they aren't a party to that agreement.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[dbcad7]

Well.. you went and made me search wikipedia.. thanks for that.. 2008 total assets for Apple 39.57 billion .. 2008 total assets for Nokia 39.58 billion .. ok so you say, well thats only .01 billion more.. but the thing is, Nokia's billions are Euros.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[RedWizzard]

Well.. you went and made me search wikipedia.. thanks for that.. 2008 total assets for Apple 39.57 billion .. 2008 total assets for Nokia 39.58 billion .. ok so you say, well thats only .01 billion more.. but the thing is, Nokia's billions are Euros.

You should have searched something more up to date than wikipedia. That 39.47B figure is for 2008. According to their 10K they now have 53.85B, or which 34B is liquid assets. Nokia's market cap is less than double that.

Re:What this is really about

[RedWizzard]

Apple is not a GSM Association member. They had nothing to do with developing GSM, and so don't have claim to the favorable RAND terms available to GSM Association members.

If Nokia wanted more in exchange for the use of their patents than other GSM patent holders do, then that is their right.

My understanding is that Nokia agreed to license those patents under FRAND terms to anyone implementing the GSM standard as a condition of having those technologies as part of the standard. If so then they don't have right to ask for whatever they like now.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[Eunuchswear]

Apple doesn't allow other apps to multitask, and purposely didn't create a way for other apps to because it [...] prevents apps from taking over the phone.

Wah? WTF? My brain just exploded.

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[Tuntematon]

Why? What patents does LG or Samsung hold that would be of interest to Nokia?

Maybe Samsung own some nice HW patents as it's one of the largest chip manufacturers in the world. LG is not a small player either.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[gnasher719]

Doesn't matter what Nokia's assets are worth, share price is share price. And Apple's $34bn cash is enough to buy more than 50 percent of the shares and at that point Nokia does what Apple says.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[jonbryce]

The difference is the fact that "inventing" new software doesn't require the same level of expenditure in R&D as inventing a new hardware process, so doesn't need the monopoly protection that patents provide.

I agree, it is a joke

[SmallFurryCreature]

The iPod shuffle must be a joke, else why is Apple laughing all the way to bank, every single day, with a ton of cash.

The shuffle is perfect as a nice small shiny, good looking mp3 player for taking to the gym. No, it is not enough for me, but then you can get very rich by ignoring nerds like me.

Re:I agree, it is a joke

[mdwh2]

The iPod shuffle must be a joke, else why is Apple laughing all the way to bank, every single day, with a ton of cash.

I'm discussing features, not sales. If you want to go by sales, then I guess you must think Windows is the best OS ever, and IE is the best browser ever, right? And Microsoft are the best software company ever, much better than Apple, as they're laughing all the way to the bank, every single day, with a ton of cash? By your logic, no one can ever criticise a Microsoft product.

Anyhow, your argument is pointless, as Sandisk are also making millions of dollars in profits.

The shuffle is perfect as a nice small shiny, good looking mp3 player for taking to the gym.

And there are far better ones for the same price, or far cheaper ones that fit those requirements. But yes, thank you for confirming that people buy Apple products for reasons of it being "nice", "shiny", "good looking".

And is this really the level that debating technology products has now stooped to on Slashdot? It's "shiny"?

You are wrong. Apple will lose.

[Weezul]

In fact, cross licensing is a perfectly normal part of these sorts of deals. If A actually needs B's patent X, then B asks for money plus patents. Why? Well, A might fall upon hard times and sue B with crappy patents

Apple needs Nokia's GSM patents. Nokia doesn't *need* any Apple patents. Nokia just wants the usual industry standard insurance policy granted by buyers when sellers give up the protection afforded by valuable patents. Guess what? Apple refused.

Apple acted like a spoiled brat and started a whole fight by refusing cross licensing. All other mobile makers are now saying "Oh, shit Apple is gonna be a patent troll!" Sony Ericsson, Motorola, HTC, and Google will all back Nokia.

Apple must realize their "multitouch" technology just isn't very valuable next to the underlying hardware that makes phones possible. "Yes, pretty interface, we'll happily knock a bit off the cross licensing deal for the rights to freely copy it, but your interface patent isn't nearly as valuable as our patent on the underlying technology."

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[Fahrvergnuugen]

I hate to break it to you, but Apple makes more money selling iPhones than any other cell phone company in the world, including Nokia. They make 32% of the profit of the entire cell phone market, not just smart phones.

Nokia was very nice about this deal.

[Weezul]

Nokia offered Apple a cross licensing deal beneficial to both companies. Apple refused, indicating their intent to use their interface patents against other mobile phone makers.

I've no idea what FRAND obligations Nokia faces under their original GSM Association membership, but Apple cannot pursue those obligations in court, as Apple is not the GSM Association.

Would some GSM Association member pursue those obligations in court on Apple's behalf? Doubtful, given Apple's indications that they'll sue other mobile makers once the GSM patents are off the table.

Apple's best option is simply agreeing to Nokia's original cross licensing deal.

p.s. It's very likely that Nokia merely asked for the cross licensing scheme built into the FRAND obligations of GSM Association membership, meaning even if Apple paid another GSM Association member to sue Nokia, they might still lose.

Apple is breaking the deal

[Weezul]

Umm, so what? Nokia has an enormous patent portfolio too.

Nokia has the patents Apple wants. Nokia asked for cross licensing. Apple refused, indicating that Apple means to sue Nokia using their patents.

Apple started the fight by acting like a patent troll and refusing the standard cross licensing deal.

Re:Apple is breaking the deal

[deltharius]

Nokia has the patents Apple wants. Nokia asked for cross licensing. Apple refused, indicating that Apple means to sue Nokia using their patents.

More importantly, Apple has patents that Nokia wants and Nokia is asking for cross licensing so that Apple can legally use Nokia's patents that Apple is already infringing upon . Is Nokia asking more than the RAND terms for the patents? Maybe; and if they are, it's a punitive measure for Apple using the patents without a license in the first place . It's not like Apple didn't know that there might be patents before they started shipping the iPhone.

Re:Apple is breaking the deal

[Weezul]

Very good point!

I doubt Apple could appeal to the RAND licensing terms, that was a deal between Nokia and the GSM Association. Who controls the GSM Association? Well, other handset maker and telephone companies! So the RAND license obligations are likely irrelevant now that Apple has shown their true colors.

AT&T is likely Apple's only friend in the GSM Association, if they are even a member. But even AT&T does not benefit from Apple suing every other handset maker over Apple's silly multi-touch patents, which was doubtless Apple's plan all alone.

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[Sandbags]

Apple didn't make the GSM chips, infineon did. Apple made the phone and OS interface that talks to those chips, that's what the patents hinge on, and designing an interface to interoperate with a 3rd party technology itself is not patentable except in specifics (otherwise it could easily be considered obvious or evolutionary), and in this case, Nokia had patents on specifics, and Apple design a method that did not infringe on their IP after nokia tried to strong arm them. Even still, those negotiatios were 2.5-3 years ago, if not longer, and Nokia took THIS LONG to file acase, into Apple's 3rd generation with a 4th pending? No, they were working to see wether they might even have a case at all, or risk getting slammed and loosing the RAND income they have from others would could suddenly stop paying... I don't think they counted on a solid standing for Apple in counter suit, thus the new action (for which I can find no links to any of the newly questioned patents, so it certainly sounds more like a political move or play to swing media than an actual infringement, given they're admitting it will be into 2011 even before a review could be completed).

If LG has such impressively fast rollouts

[Tran]

Wouldn't it be just as plausible that after Apple put in the 2 years of development that it was LG that was the industrial spy and just cranked up their impressive capability to beat the iPhone to market?
In any case, the picture on the Wikipedia page owes just as much to any of the windows CE devices and Palms on the market as the iPhone owes that Prada.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[jbengt]

Finally, in no way does IQ correlate to one's ability to proficiently code.

Really? So someone with an IQ of 80 is going to be able to learn to write code just as well as someone with an IQ of 120?

Also, 6.7% of the 9th grade population is (in the US) more than 280,000 students. That would be a lot of coders even if only 10% of the 6.7% learned to write code.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[jbengt]

If you use an FPGA, then you're not designing the NAND and NOR gates, are you? You're just configuring some switches for the physical device(s) that were probably already patented. Though the probability is that most of the relevant patents have already expired.

Re:What this is really about

[russotto]

Whether Nokia follow their agreement with GSMA or not is a matter between Nokia and GSMA. Apple have no grounds to complain, because they aren't a party to that agreement.

That's not necessarily true. If the GSMA promotes (with the consent of the member manufacturers) the availability of this licensing to all potential licensees, then Apple might be able to claim to be an intended third-party beneficiary which would give them grounds to complain.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[jbengt]

Processes resulting in physical changes are patentable. Like, for instance, a process for curing rubber.
Processes that reult in symbolic results, like an algorithm, are just math, and math has never been patentable in the US. Otherwise, you could patent thinking, which would be untenable.
Software is the latter, IMO.
IANAL, YMMV, etc.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[russotto]

Why is it ok to patent the implementation of an algorithm in hardware but not ok to patent the implementation of the same algorithm in software?

It shouldn't be. "Algorithm X, implemented in pre-existing hardware" should be unpatentable.

Do we say that all software patents should be invalid simply because of obvious patents like amazon's one click? Isn't that a problem with the obviousness criteria and not the underlying makeup (be it software or hardware) of the patent?

Yes, that one is. But there are multiple problems with the patent system. The novelty and non-obviousness criteria are broken (to be non-novel pretty much means the prior art must describe exactly what the patent describes), and their implementations are even more broken (as the same thing as been patented multiple times on many occasions). But just because that's true doesn't mean software patents should be valid if it were false.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[russotto]

Copyright would apply to a diagram or schematic of your mouse trap. A copyright on your schematic would not prevent me from building the trap described by the schematic. It just keeps me from copying the schematic itself. But a patent on your design does keep me from making your mouse trap, regardless of whether or not I actually copy the schematic. Extrapolating out to software is not difficult and is left as an exercise for the reader.

Actually it IS difficult. Because in the case of software, the schematic IS the device.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[russotto]

* No. 5, 634, 074 : Serial I/O device identifies itself to a computer through a serial interface during power on reset then it is being configured by the computer

Sneer. Point. Laugh.

I know, I know. I should look at the claims before I sneer, point, and laugh. But really, for that title I'll make an exception. I mean, that one's right up there with the one about two disk shaped devices connected in their center by a rod.

Supposition Denied

[meehawl]

Wouldn't it be just as plausible that after Apple put in the 2 years of development that it was LG that was the industrial spy and just cranked up their impressive capability to beat the iPhone to market?

That's an interesting assumption without any basis in reality, or even a preponderance of evidence in its favour. Consider this. LG has been in the business of mobile phones for two decades. It designs and delivers several dozen models a year (in fact, it's the world's third-largest phone manufacturer, literally dwarfing Apple's numbers by an order of magnitude). It is also actually Apple's main supplier of displays. Its R&D spend makes Apple's look like pocket change, and it has close to 200,000 employees, most of whom are not retail store clerks posing as "genii". Finally, if you think that LG was able to somehow purloin operational and design details of Apple's phone years before it was revealed, than you have a very different understanding of how the industry works, and how Apple's notorious internal surveillance works.

Re:Supposition Denied

[Tran]

You are right, it was just a supposition, however it still is not implausible.
Sure LG dwarfs Apple in the categories you mention, however I also know LG makes a heck of a lot more products than phones, so those statements are like comparing oranges to cumquats.

The iPhone and the Prada being announced within one month of each other these two products certainly makes my supposition possible, particularly taken into account your assertion of LG's capabilities. LG being a supplier to Apple certainly does not distract from that either.
As to Apple's internal surveillance... nothing is ever secure from determined enough people.

Another point of the timing - the Prada certainly looks like it could have been from an early stage of the iphone design development; it looks like it is from the design phase when there still where too many buttons....

It is just fun speculation. Certainly while the Prada looks like an iPhone ( or vice versa if you prefer) it certainly looks like it still has too many roots in the win mobile / Blackberry camps with all those buttons.

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[aristotle-dude]

Nokia wanted three times "that" amount only after Apple declined cross-licensing deal.

Now think for a second; surely deal of other phone tech manufacturers with Nokia (those that are "three times less") must include cross licensing.

Apple is the one who demands non-RAND treating for itself.

RAND treatment means fair and non-discriminatory licensing. It does not mean, "cross license or pay three times as much as Sony Ericsson". How can you not consider that anything but extortion and abuse of monopoly power?

Re:You are wrong. Apple will lose.

[aristotle-dude]

Uh, dude. Sony Ericsson and Motorola are part of the cartel with Nokia so of course they would back Nokia. They also do not pay as much as other companies that are not part of the cartel. Google is not a handset maker and they use HTC as well as Motorola as their OEM. Cross licensing is common when both parties agree to it. Do you comprehend that an agreement requires both parties to agree? If you are told that you must give access to patents or pay triple the normal fee that everyone else pays would you not consider that illegal extortion?

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[DMiax]

Right, and I can teleport. I just don't do it.

Re:how the mighty have fallen

[dbcad7]

They don't have 34 billion in cash though do they ? They have 34 billion in assets.. Noika's 34 billion is euros, which is 48 billion US BTW.. so to achieve half of 48 billion, they would need 24 billion... So lets think about that, if this crazy scenario were to play out (it won't).. Apple uses 24 billion, leaving only 10 billion in their own company.. But what about the other way, what if Nokia went even crazier and used 17 billion to buy half of Apple, leaving them 31 billion in their own company.. who sounds stronger ?

Re:You are wrong. Apple will lose.

[Weezul]

Nevertheless, Apple just reveled they plan on being a patent troll about their silly multi-touch patents. So nobody will back them. If nobody backs them, they cannot appeal to the RAND licensing component of Nokia's GSM Association membership, which makes Apple just another patent infringer.

Nokia play it well, by tricking Apple into revealing their true colors. Apple will now need to cross license.

Button Frenzy

[meehawl]

there still where too many buttons

Given that I am often multitasking with my visual attention, I actually *prefer* devices with a goodly number of well-placed buttons with tactile feedback. The haptic phone screens pioneered by Samsung are a poor substitute, and the dead glass screens favoured by Apple are simply terrible for feedback and apparently designed to demand the operator's full attention be focussed on the screen and the UI operation. Which is how Apple likes it, but not really what I want from a device that I like to operate in an unplanned environment and often remotely within a pocket or similar. Apple has consciously designed its handheld devices like this, in a way that foregrounds the operation and forces the operator to unveil the device. Effectively acting as a walking marketing billboard. It's a clever strategy, and one that appeals to a lot of people who mistake ersatz design minimalism for real usability simplicity.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[Random BedHead Ed]

Last time I checked the MS-friendly /. clone was called ActiveDot (News for suits, Stuff that blue-screens). Actually, I haven't checked it in about ten years and now that I think about it, I think they renamed it Dot2000, and then MSNDot, and then DotDotNet, and then LiveDot. So maybe it is BingDot by now.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[Random BedHead Ed]

I mean, that one's right up there with the one about two disk shaped devices connected in their center by a rod.

Hey, don't make fun of the method of fashioning a two-circled axle device - Nokia holds the rights to that one and is defending it in no less a venue than Texas.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[aztracker1]

And how much would a mistake cost to fix in a post-production run vs. most software?

Re:GO NOKIA!

[aristotle-dude]

Dude, get a life. Apple gave Xerox Apple shares in exchange for access to PARC. Xerox did not see the value of the GUI until later and they already sued Apple and lost the case.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[blind biker]

To the mods who gave this clown +5, Informative: did you really think Nokia has only such mickey mouse patents to go to war with? here is a list of patents (I don't have the patent numbers, just the names):

Data Transmission in a Radio Telephone Network
Data Transfer in a Mobile Telephone Network
Measurement Report Transmission in a Telecommunications System
Access Channel for Reduced Access Delay in a Telecommunications System
Reporting Cal Measurement Results in a Cellular Communication System
Method and Apparatus for Speech Transmission in a Mobile Communication System
Speech Synthesizer Employing Post-Processing for Enhancing the Quality of the Synthesized Speech
Method of Ciphering Data Transmission in a Radio System
Integrity Check in a Communication System
System for Ensuring Encrypted Communication After handover

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[geekoid]

Nice argument from history.

I will argue the it's been wrong and against the point of patents even 132 years ago.

Software should not be patent, and neither should it's process.
Patenting a software precess strangles an industry. From a practical stand point patenting a software process effectively blocks all software development. There are very few actual process software does. Many different programs sue the same process,as do compilers.

You should be able to copyright software.

I mean, we don't allow people to process sentence structure.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[geekoid]

"..., then you can get a broad patent on mouse traps."

but you shouldn't be able to do that.

Patents are suppose to be specific so people can add to them and innovate.

No one has implemented a holographic interface, so I'll patent holographic interface and stifle everyone.
it's stupid.
\Patent the idea of a mousetrap and you stop all mouse trap industry.

Tlbhtlbhltt

[garote]

Well, there you go. As you say, you have no idea what FRAND obligations Nokia faces. So I will describe them to you.

In 2008, Nokia demanded that, as part of it’s compensation for licensing Nokia’s portfolio of purported essential patents, Apple must grant Nokia a license to a particular number of Apple non-standards-essential patents. That demand is prima-facie discriminatory. Nokia is not allowed to troll through the entire portfolio of a company when assembling the terms of a license. That behavior is practically the opposite of what the GSM Association was assembled to do.

Then in 2009, Nokia actually worsened their terms, by demanding a royalty three times greater than any other they'd offered in the past.

Your ignorance invalidates the rest of your "argument", including your bizarre condition that only the GSM Association itself can file a patent lawsuit against its members.

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[Zordak]

Patents are suppose to be specific so people can add to them and innovate.

The fact that something is patented does not stop you from improving on it, or from patenting your improvements. You don't have to have the right to make and sell something to patent it.

No one has implemented a holographic interface, so I'll patent holographic interface and stifle everyone.

Send me your enabling disclosure, and I will be happy to submit your patent application. I can also help you with licensing

Re:Consistency or hypocrisy?

[Zordak]

Did you ever take an introductory CS class? I'm guessing that you wrote some simple program like a bubble sort. Are you saying that everybody's bubble sort program was identical to everybody else's bubble sort program? No, of course not. Bubble sort is a method. A method is patentable if it meets the other (presently ill-defined) requirements. Your little bubblesort.c source file is like the schematic. It is protected by copyright. Nobody is permitted to copy your bubblesort.c without your permission. But that doesn't stop anybody from writing a bubble sort program of their own.

Maemo, Apple SDK, Nokia UI ....

[rickst29]

WiseWeasel is VERY expert about Maemo, and it's competitors. (I bow to the Wise one.) But IMO, Nokia's current product (N900) and it's short-term pipeline have a big hardware issue effecting the UI, and putting Qt into the Maemo software "stack" entices software developers into making the world of Nokia Apps a lot less consistent, rather than more consistent.

The Nokia hardware platform problem is multitouch. Resistive touchscreens are much less expensive to build, and multitouch is possible on such technology- but like the early days of LCD TV trying to compete with Plasma, the behavior is manifestly worse. Just like the old LCDs did a terrible job with motion, the current resistive screens do a really terrible job of recognizing a user's touch. Even a single-touch action gets mishandled or unrecognized from time to time. It's a hardware problem, and IMO Nokia's premier product is behind the competition in touchscreen. Resistive screens may catch up Capacitative screens in the future, or Nokia might switch in a future product... but right now, even the N900 is frustrating to use, and this is the main reason why.

The software problem is upcoming, not yet even present in Maemo v5. As you all know, Nokia bought Trolltech, the makers of the 'Qt' graphics toolkit. Nearly all of 'Qt' is now open source code, LGPL. (The switch to this particular license, granting un-revocable and very liberal terms others to use as they please, was a Nokia choice, subsequent to the purchase.) Software developers were, and are, thrilled by the possibility of "write once, run anywhere" graphical applications. And I think that this was an important reason for Nokia's acquisition, even if the main reason had been a defensive purchase of TrollTech's toolkit 'intellectual property' before it got bought by someone else and patented/re-licensed under nasty terms by someone else.I'll guess that both considerations were considered to be extremely important.

But Maemo 6 inherits two GUI tookits: It's own, which is fairly complete but totally non-portable; and QT v4, which is beautifully designed, but not yet sufficiently complete, not even for computer applications. (You need to provide tons of widgets yourself, either by writing them raw or using another toolkit to "help out" with additional elements. KDE and the Maemo 6 Graphics Library can theoretically utilize qt elements as "lower layer" items, but it's hard to do it all from inside Qt-- it just isn't there yet.) KDE uses Qt very heavily, as an underlying "layer". Maemo use of Qt brand new, and IMO you're better off using the legacy elements. Instead of instantiating a Qt window, with it's controls, you're going to want to create a Maemo window, in the "old" way. After you've committed yourself to which kind of App Window it is, all the child controls and methods are totally different source code. So, if you want to create an App for both desktop KDE and Symbian phones, your code grows into a huge jungle of #ifdef MAEMO .... #elif KDE .... #endif macros, nearly as thick and nasty as using common source code for Linux/X11 and win32 implementations of your program. Development and maintenance of such stuff isn't easy or fun, so SOME people will try to code using just QT-- and I'm afraid that their Apps might end up looking a lot different. Two UI's for the end user, in different programs on the same device, would IMO be a disaster for Nokia.

I don't think the problem comes from departmental infighting, I think that it's more a question of not-enough-time. It takes time, LOTS of time, to unify those toolkits, and everyone who already wrote something (the writers of KDE4; the writers of KDE Apps; all the writers of Maemo Apps) depends on the groups of developers (i.e., the writers of Qt and the writers of the Maemo graphics tookit) not to break their existing GUI code. The time and money simply wasn't there for such an enormous project. I won't be surprised if it isn't there for Mameo-7, or Maemo-8, either. Be

It is not simply as rolling a antenna inside phone

[Ilgaz]

There is some huge R&D required to do an internal antenna which will function exactly or better than external antenna, especially in high (900+Mhz) frequencies.

One AC replied to another Apple apologist even points to the URL of the patent below. Gotta browse Apple mentioned stories at -1 you know, for known reasons.

BTW, I am almost banned from Nokia websites, I use 4-5 Macs regularly but it doesn't change the fact that Apple really does a big mistake if they trust to their PR department on this issue. Judges are never impressed by how "cool" you are, they look at the facts.

Re:Pathetic

[el_jake]

Seems like a lot of Nokia staff moderates in here, since they trolls the facts.. Interesting.

Funny

[Swift2001]

Usually, the dominant mood in these forums is anti-patent. Not so when it's Apple, another favorite bugaboo, getting sued.

They're countersuing, alleging Nokia infringes.

And of course, there's the old saw that when you're competing well, you sell your product; when things are not going so well, and you're losing marketshare, you sue.

I'm afraid you're the one being ignorant

[Weezul]

Apple definitely cannot hold Nokia to any FRAND obligations because Apple is not party to the contracts involved in forming the GSM Association.

Sorry, that's how contracts work. You cannot sue your landlord for renting an identical unit to yours to his cousin for half your rent, as you are not party to that contract. Similarly, you cannot sue various OSS companies who offer their software under the GPL for also offering their software under commercial licenses. Contracts inherently work that way.

Your fear is misplaced

[garote]

The GSM Association, like any other industry regulatory body with members, can require its members to conduct their affairs a certain way even with regard to entities that are NOT part of the body, including competitors and POTENTIAL competitors who are trying to enter the industry. Those obligations can be declared enforceable by a local, state, or federal agency. In this specific case of Apple vs. Nokia, they have been. And Apple has filed suit in the appropriate venue.

Your examples regarding landlords and the GPL are inane red herrings.

Re:Nokia and the hurt bag...

[Uberbah]

Market cap means diddly, really.

Share price and cash-on-hand, however, do. And Apple's $34 billion in liquid assets is more than enough to buy majority interest in Nokia.