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Apple Seeks To Ban Nokia Imports To US
Hugh Pickens writes "Cnet reports that the ongoing patent battle between Apple and Nokia has escalated, with Apple moving to block imports of Nokia cell phones to the US by filing a complaint with the International Trade Commission, an independent federal agency that examines issues including unfair trade practices involving patent, trademark, and copyright infringement. In December, Nokia filed its own complaint with the USITC alleging that Apple infringes seven Nokia patents 'in virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players, and computers' and sought to ban imports of Apple's iPhone, iPod, and MacBook products. Responding to Apple's latest move, Nokia spokesman Mark Durrant told Bloomberg that 'Nokia will study the complaint when it is received and continue to defend itself vigorously. However this does not alter the fact that Apple has failed to agree appropriate terms for using Nokia technology and has been seeking a free ride on Nokia's innovation since it shipped the first iPhone in 2007.' An ITC investigation is a lengthy process, but it's possible that Apple and Nokia might reach some sort of settlement as suits continue to escalate between the two companies."
Is it really cheaper to sue for peace? I mean, can't the legal teams for both companies see this down the road and come to some sort of mutual agreement in advance? It'd sure save a lot of time and money, not to mentioning freeing the courts a bit. Why is it acceptable policy to sue instead of discussing?
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
The 10 patents it accuses Apple of violating are related to making phones able to run on GSM, 3G, and Wi-Fi networks
which sounds like a trivial thing to patent to begin with. How again are patents really contributing to the general good?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The summary is a good example of a situation when patents really shine at what they are: a handbrake on innovation. Consumer has nothing to gain if a capable competitor is excluded from the marketplace like that. Leading companies will invest in RnD, patents or not, mostly just to keep up with the state of the art, but also because when (by chance), their engineers invent something truly novel and useful, they will have weeks, months, or may be even years before competitors reverse-engineer their product and learn how to build it cheaper. It is clearly not worth for the public to pay the patent enforcement and monopoly taxes unless the patent law strongly boosts the rate of innovation (and even then, is there really a point?).
And we have no evidence whatsoever that the patent system of any kind increases the rate of innovation (the technological leap of the last 400 years is probably mostly due to the fossil fuels, and we are in for another boost, due to the Internet, the holy Grail of communication). We but we have clear examples of monopolistic behaviors, where the cost to consumer can be directly calculated, like in every case when a cheaper competing product is barred from the market.
The reasonable thing to do would be to start decreasing the patent term, while measuring how it affects the rate of innovation. I would not be surprised to see that it doesn't.
The reality is that, globally, Nokia is the larger company with a larger patent portfolio and has been in business far longer than Apple. Apple may have some key patents, but Nokia certainly have more in relation to mobile phone technology. The first patents at issue were ones necessary for GSM operation: without them, no GSM phone. It seems Apple, for whatever reason (possibly to maintain the secrecy of the iPhone development), decided not to sort out licensing before releasing the iPhone. This could be bad for Apple, if Nokia can prove in court that Apple deliberatly infringed on the patents to get the iPhone to market. Sure, Apple is arguing that license terms were not FRAND (as required by the GSM Association), but disagreement with licensing terms is not an exemption to put a product on the market.
Going to the USITC is simply the next step in this legal tit-for-tat. The seven patents at issue in Nokia's filing to the USITC (involving camera, antenna and power management technology) were different to the original ten patents it sued for in October (involving GSM and wireless technology). Apple countersued in December for thirteen patents. I have yet to see if Apple's USITC filing involes the same thirteen patents. If it does, Apple's USITC filing could be thrown out to avoid a situation of double jeopardy. If it doesn't it would be interesting to see what patents are in Apple's USITC filing.
It seems that Apple is trying to force a settlement out of Nokia, but Apple have for more to lose in this situation. Sure, there is a possibility of a ban on Nokia phones in the US, but most of Nokia's market lies outside the US. It is hard to tell what will happen next, but if a settlement is going to happen it won't be soon. I wouldn't be surprised if Nokia's next step is to take the fight international, with a filing in the EU. I can't help feeling that Apple may come out of this battle worse off.
Does Apple really think they can do a mobile phone to the market in few years without violating any of Nokia's iventions done in the past 20 years that are patented? They think they do but reality is different. This is just Apple's response to get better negotiation grounds and with luck, they get a Judge who has Apple laptop to the case. Only then Apple has chances to win 1 round but only lose at the end at the higher court level.
Other than the part where Nokia wanted more money and more patents from Apple than from other manufacturers, of course. Somebody might be acting childish, but it sure isn't Apple.
Because every other company has agreed to Nokia's terms. I doubt that this would have happened if their claims were without merit. In addition, Nokia has no history of patent trolling. They spend massive amounts of money to research and are responsible for many of the most important inventions related to mobile data transfer. In addition, they license all their patents rather reasonably to all the competitors. Companies like Nokia are why the patent system exists.
So, when Apple suddenly decides not to pay any licensing fees, I trust Nokia a whole lot more.
This is just a feeling I have, but somehow the evil American corporation is more likely then the evil Finnish corporation.
Exception Duck - may or may not contain chicken.
While I also think Nokia's phones haven't been up to quality in recent years (I switched to HTC and love it), they have a long history in developing phones and the technology behind it. They have spend millions on R&D. They fairly cross license patents with other manufacturers, like every one else does (theres not so many manufacturers anyways), but Apple refuses to do this.
Even if their phones aren't as good as some competitors currently, Nokia is one of the companies that actually deserve to be paid their patent royalties.
While patent laws are on Nokia's side too, they aren't even lowering to patent trolling - they're just asking Apple to behave good and like everyone else on the small industry and cross license their patents and pay the small share like everyone else does (3-4% per phone sale if I remember correctly, and Apple gets the same back if Nokia uses their patents). Is this too much to ask?
You also have to weigh the fact that Apple is a big target and is under much heavier scrutiny - just look at the way Greenpeace treated them in their "well researched" green technology/environmental roundup, where companies like Dell and HP scored much better despite being 20 years behind Apple in several areas related to environmental factors like removal of BFRs from products, removal of particular toxins from packaging, cables, lead free solder, energy use etc etc.
Apple are not blameless by any means, but in general they are not the textbook "evil" company that some people like to make out they are with some of the casual commentary I have seen in these comments so far. Usually little throwaway opinion bits made to look like facts and then used to support a later point, that sort of thing.
Incidentally, what did you really expect them to do regarding Jobs' health? The health of a CEO (even one as pivotal as Steve) is a private matter. They're not just going to tell you "oh yeah, he's touch and go and having treatment for pancreatic cancer...", they are going to remain tight lipped. It's no different from any other large company. You can argue that Jobs is a "special case" because of his "magic touch" at Apple, but that really doesn't hold water. His health issues are private. I didn't like the eventual way he essentially had to come out and openly talk about his condition and treatment in a public setting. He was hounded incessantly until he gave it up.
I agree that they should take it to the EU, not that I usually support the EU's special brand of crazy that gives them liscence to print money from other peoples accounts (Intel, Microsoft) but it would be fantastic to finally see Apple being held to the same standard as everyone else.
Fining companies for harming the market and consumers is the exact opposite of 'crazy'. Such fines have long-term benefits for everybody big and small alike.
Price fixing, collusion, anti-competitive practises. They are bad. They hurt companies. They hurt consumers in both choice and price.
And if you're alluding to the notion that the EU only fines non EU-based companies: the meme is false. Dozens of other EU companies have been fined on precisely the same grounds. You never heard of it because as far as the US media is concerned, things that don't affect the USA don't exist. That goes for Slashdot too.
I am with Nokia on this issue, but don't make the mistake of thinking they are good guys. Nokia has traditionally been the Microsoft of the cell phone industry. Ignoring standards, making their own incompatible standards and even making phones with severe security issues. They had SMS viruses at one point! Also Nokia has been pushing for software patents in Europe, making them a sworn enemy of many geeks.
Yes, that is exactly what he is saying.
You obviously don't understand how Patents work in the first place.
If I hold a patent I can bar damned near ANYONE from implementing it as a manufacturing endeavor- even with people not doing it for profits. Now, in the act of doing so, I might run afoul of certain anti-trust laws in some countries- but in most cases, I will not.
If Apple's not ponying up the licensing, they shouldn't be allowed to sell their stuff that uses the tech. Now, nobody's disclosed what Apple's been offered as terms for this access. Odds on, it's along the lines of licensing multitouch and a few other things out to all the players in the mobile device space that's part of the GSM consortium- which is par for the course and part of the RAND terms extended to all the GSM consortium members (even though Apple's not a member right at the moment...). If this is the case, Apple's being ill-behaved and should be on the receiving end of this- and I've little doubt in my mind about that being a part of this. Apple's viewing, rightly, that they have some "secret sauce" in multitouch that if they cross-license, there's less value in an iPhone as a result (If multitouch is the only real selling point, it's not as good a product as they're making out to be... ;-) )- which would be right.
Unfortunately for Apple, they have to play ball here- or take the iPhone out of circulation because it's infringing and they're unwilling to play by the rules of the game. Unless the terms are disclosed and found to not be RAND, there's little room for Apple to frame this as monopolistic (Patents are monopolies of reproduction given to companies and inventors by governments to foster and promote the furtherance of science and technology...).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
My point was that Greenpeace nailed Apple for all sorts of things that Apple very easily and demonstrably proved were not the case, while HP and Dell were giving good marks by Greenpeace for much less.
It's only relevant in regard to the way people scrutinize Apple. Greenpeace heavily criticised Apple for BFRs, and awarded HP a higher score for "planning make a plan to eliminate BFRs" (ie, not even actually doing much) where Apple had already removed the bulk of BFRs from their products several years before and was almost totally done - years and years ahead of HP, yet they were scored lower by Greenpeace.
I'm not saying that Apple is not at fault, or that they should be trusted implicitly, but you can't always believe everything you read, even if it is negative.
Apple does not deliver fundamentally new technology like Nokia; well not during the last 10 years anyways, the Newton was new, original Mac was new, etc.
Applie meditates upon existing technology and works out how to present the technology so that the average user will benefit most. Incremental backups like Time Machine have existed forever, ala rsync, but Apple slapping on a gui with a starscape has saved thousands of users from losing irreplaceable data.
Apple will need to pay royalties for the underlying technology they are using. Indeed, they'll owe Nokia massive damages for the past 3 years, possibly exceeding the total value of all iPhone's sold thus far. Nokia was extremely forgiving by offering merely a cross licensing deal.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
According to wikipedia their share of the device market was 38% in Q3 2009. Alluvasudden some upstart invades *their* mobile phone market, steals a big chunk of *their* share of the smartphone market
A few percent is big? Well, I suppose it is a loss to Nokia, even if it's only a few per cent - but why aren't they going after RIM, as they're a company gaining even higher share than Apple?
and to make matters worse no matter what they do Nokia can't seem to beat the Apple iPhone even when they practically copy it
What? Nokia were making phones long before Apple were around - who's copying who here? And by your own source, they still appear to be beating Apple massively in the market - or let me guess, are you redefining success to mean something else?
Evidence would be nice in an accusation.
That's like asking for evidence that WWII happened. Go read up on Apple corporate history.
Also, I guess he is saying that Apple does not "spend massive amounts of money to research"
Apple used to do research and collaborate with universities, but they stopped in the 1990's.
Today, Apple spends virtually no money on research, as you can see from their non-existent research output (=publications, citations), from their lack of hiring in computer science research, and from their lack of interaction with computer science departments. Furthermore, the iPhone and almost all its fundamental technologies were invented elsewhere.
and is not responsible for shaking up the mobile phone market
They are definitely responsible for that.
and giving more power to the consumer.
With what? Lock-in not only to a carrier but to Apple products as well? By disabling such commonplace technology as tethering? By not allowing me to install software on my phone? By having a crippled Bluetooth implementation that doesn't talk to standard devices? Do tell, what power does an iPhone give me that I didn't have before?
Don't get me wrong: Apple does great product design and their products are decent (if premium priced). And Apple's impact on the industry has often been positive overall by getting other companies out of their ruts. But Apple is not the great innovator or inventor they are made out to be, and they deserve neither the credit nor the monopoly that their fanboys want to give them.