This is no patent troll lawsuit. This is the world's largest mobile phone maker calling out one of the most beloved devices of recent history on ten counts of patent infringement.
The patents that Nokia cited in its complaint to the Delaware District Court today are related to wireless standard compatibility, speech coding and wireless data, as well as security and encryption. Nokia says it has licensed these patents out to more than 40 other companies and that every model of iPhone since the device's introduction in 2007 has infringed on them.
"The basic principle in the mobile industry is that those companies who contribute in technology development to establish standards create intellectual property, which others then need to compensate for. Apple is also expected to follow this principle," Nokia's Ilkka Rahnasto, Vice President, Legal & Intellectual Property, said in a prepared statement today. "By refusing to agree appropriate terms for Nokia's intellectual property, Apple is attempting to get a free ride on the back of [our] innovation."
The Patents Nokia cites in the complaint are the following:
1.) "Data Transmission in a Radio Telephone Network." (1998) Covers the formation of virtual data channel.
2.) "Data Transfer in a Mobile Telephone Network." (2002) A wireless patent which covers when a radio block is to be coded, and user data is transferred in octet form to simplify flow of data.
3.) "Measurement Report Transmission in a Telecommunications System." (2004) This lets mobile devices respond to polling codes that indicate the condition of that device.
4.) "Access Channel for Reduced Access Delay in a Telecommunications System." (2004) A UMTS patent where access requests are adjusted based on channel conditions.
5.)"Reporting Cell Measurement Results in a Cellular Communications System." (2006) This "enables a mobile device to report an increased number of signal quality measurements to a mobile network."
6.) "Method and Apparatus for Speech Transmission." (1998) This lets multiple speech coding methods to be used at different transmission rates for 2 stage channel encoding.
7.) "Speech Synthesizer Employing Post-Processing for Enhancing the Quality of the Synthesized Speech." (1999) This is a postfilter processing technology for clearer voice calls.
8.) "Method of Ciphering Data Transmission in a Radio System." (2005) This covers a UMTS cyphering alogrithm with a channel specific parameter among its inputs.
9.) "Integrity Check in a Communications System." (2006) A UMTS integrity algorithm calculated from values including channel identity information.
10.) "System for Ensuring Encrypted Communication after Handover." (2008) This allows for secure handoffs with an encryption algorithms supported by a mobile station between radio access networks.
Nokia's complaint is a heavy affair, including nearly a dozen pieces of evidence with myriad schematics and graphs illustrating the ways Apple uses Nokia's patents.
In sum, however, it's a claim that is very simply stated: Apple Violates all of these patents because the iPhone:
1.) Is a wireless communication device,
2.) Includes encoders/decoders for bi-directional voice and data communication.
Nokia says Apple has heretofore failed to pay licensing fees for these patents under The European Telecommunications Standards Institute's Intellectual Property Policy (ETSI IPR Policy), and that the nearly three years of infringement must be paid for.
"Prior to filing this Complaint, Nokia has made various offers to Apple for the fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory royalty determination (F/RAND) terms and conditions of a license agreement...Apple has rejected Nokia's offers for the F/RAND terms and conditions both on a portfolio and on a per-patent basis, and thereby refused to compensate Nokia on F/RND terms for its use of Nokia's patented technologies, including each of the patents-in-suit."
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
