Brand Nokia, now bought by HMD Global, is making a comeback next year to the smartphone business with some exciting new android powered phones. However, Nokia Corp, in reply to Apple’s legal action against them, has filed a number of lawsuits against the Cupertino-based company, for violating as many as 32 technology patents.
The lawsuits, cover violations of patents for displays, user interfaces, software, antennas, chipsets and video coding. Earlier on Tuesday, Apple had taken legal action against Acacia Research Corp and Conversant Intellectual Property Management Inc, accusing them of conspiring with Nokia to extract revenues in an unfair manner from Apple.
In a statement made by Nokia, the company mentioned, “Since agreeing a license covering some patents from the Nokia Technologies portfolio in 2011, Apple has declined subsequent offers made by Nokia to license other of its patented inventions which are used by many of Apple’s products.”
Two variants of the Nokia D1C android smartphone prepped up for MWC 2017
While Apple’s spokesman, Josh Rosenstock said, “We’ve always been willing to pay a fair price to secure the rights of patents covering technology in our products. Unfortunately, Nokia has refused to license their patents on a fair basis and is now using the tactics of a patent troll to attempt to extort money from Apple by applying a royalty rate to Apple’s own inventions they had nothing to do with.”
This is a revival of the courtroom slugfest that started a few years ago between Apple and Samsung. With Nokia now ready to get its feet dirty, it’ll be interesting to see if this helps the Finns gain some limelight and somehow work in their favor, or make the brand bleed to death when they re-enter the smartphone business, early next year.
