Nokia suit against Apple seen as battle of two Goliaths - Page 2

Actually they are THE largest cellphone manufacturer in the WORLD

Not for long now.

Its a long-game play by Nokia. They understand that Apple is kicking butt and will continue to do so. They also realise that to compete they will need to implement a number of things in the future that will likely infringe Apple-held patents.

Apple DOES infringe a number of Nokia patents but contends that it is already licensing these through 3rd party deals - Nokia is attempting to force a cross-licensing deal.

This will take three or four years to sort out - it'll be interesting to see the relative sizes of each company by then.

Many companies like QCOM sell their chips or license the manufacturing of the chips to somebody for a royalty. Anybody using the chips into a device has to pay a royalty % based of the ASP. Of course if the chip is put in laptop, the royalty is on the valued added and not on the whole laptop.

The GSM+WCDMA cabal created a lot of IPRs and they license the tech. Nokia, Ericsson, QCOM are part of this cabal. I read somewhere that Apple already pays something like $30-40/phone royalties to the cabal.

So this lawsuit must be something like the landlord wanting to raise the rent on a restaurant after signing the long term lease, but finding that the restaurant is making a killing.

Nokia has a history of being very litigious. QCOM developed 3G tech called CDMA. Nokia denied the tech would work. Then when they saw it work, they sued Apple. Created a separate standard called UMTS to dilute QCOM patents.

Nokia is nothing but being another blood sucking leech.

QCOM CDMAOne or IS-95 is not 3G and has nothing to do with UMTS. UMTS is based on CDMA also.

Nokia didn't created UMTS standard.

How will this look in three years time??
[QUOTE]
Recent returns:
........| day | month | YTD | year | 5 year

AAPL | -1.63% | +4.30% | +127.49% | +94.33% | +644.05%
NOKA | +0.68% | -15.59% | -17.01% | -21.55% | -6.82%

source: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=apple%2Fnokia

I don't think it's quite that, although I'm not going to pass judgment. But some of the patents that Nokia claim to have the rights to enforce make it impossible for any phone manufacturer to create a phone without infringing on/licensing said patents.

Not at all. If Nokia has the patent, and more just an 'idea patent', on these technologies then they deserve a license fee. Just like Mercedes would if they had a patent on the actual design of the internal combustion engine.

if this is over an idea and not an exact technology then Apple will likely come out clean. Because the days of getting a patent on an idea are coming to an end.

What confuses me is this notion that a company as big as Apple would just straight up violate a patent. wouldn't they have weeks, if not months, of research into existing patents, including perhaps a few of their own on the tech they use. With detailed analysis on the lack of overlap? Is the Patent Office not verifying the existence/non existence of overlap before they actually grant patents. If Nokia had a patent, wouldn't Apple have gone and worked out a license deal with them and have it on paper.


Actually that article gives no information that they were in contact. Just says again that it has been suggested that perhaps they were.

but what it also mentions is this:

so since it would see that Qualcomm are the true 'owners' of said patents, how do we know that Apple didn't contact and license from them and it's actually Qualcomm that Nokia should be suing for now sharing the income. We don't. but it is at this point possible. Especially since that case wasn't concluded until June 2008 (per the linked article) and Apple would have settled up any licensing well before they even said the word iPhone for the first time.

and in that attached article we have this tidbit

so for all we know, on paper Qualcomm are in fact the owners, per this agreement, of all the 'infringed tech'


there's nothing to sue about with the itunes issue. it's not a legal violation like Psystar. it's more akin to a sports game where Palm wants to change the rules. Decide that what is a foul isn't a foul if they do it. but the USB-IF isn't a legal authority. All they can do is refuse to license to Palm anymore. and given that Palm flipped them the finger over the dressing down and siding with Apple, that is exactly what might happen. But that would be out of Apple's hands.

<delete>

I rather suspect that this is a question not of whether to pay 'something' but rather about how much is fair.

Perhaps Nokia is trying to base the royalties on a percentage of the total cost of the iPhone while Apple is saying that it would only pay based on the slice of the cost that is relevant to the patents - the telephony, (without going into all the fine technical details). What part of the cost of an iPhone is attributable to the iPod, browser, camera, other apps etc. It would be at least the cost of an iPod Touch plus a camera and Apple MIGHT be saying why should we pay ANY percentage of the value of that aspect of the device.

If this is their stand, if would certainly stand the light of common sense. Have no way of knowing that though ...

Being the first to sue doesn't necessarily means they have strong case. Nokia did that with Qualcomm and Nokia ended up paying $2.5 billion to Qualcomm in the countersuit settlement. Nokia has the right to defend their IP and so does Apple but the final word is for the courts.

I can't disagree with the above, but it sounds like they had an agreement with Apple but came back crying in their hankies asking for more. At least this seems to be the case. It is interesting Apple refrenced FRAND in it's statements. It makes it sound like Nokia is just getting greedy.

Of course that could just be Apple PR spin. On the other hand Nokia is loosing ground faster than any other cell phone company including Motorola, that can cause desperation on the part of management.

This is very true. However there appears to be heavy penalties against new comers to the cell phone industry. If the industry as a hole charges vastly more for license for new comers than I'd have to side with Apple. That is the industry is engaging in illegal non competitive activities. This isn't hard to believe considering what we have seen in the cell industry in general.

Frankly I don't know if Apple is right or wrong here. However it does look like Nokia is taking the low road to shoring up profits.

Dave

Everyone here is missing the point.

I don't think this case is really about Apple infringing on Nokia patents. Rather, it's about Apple having produced a technology that is now kicking every cell phone maker's ass, and since Apple has THAT patented, no one can produce a phone that does the same thing.

I think what Nokia is really doing here is trying to threaten Apple into licensing the multi-touch technology in the iPhone so Nokia can use it to get competitive again. Of course, we all know what Apple is going to say to that... even if Apple does end up having to pay Nokia a small amount for "licensing" (yeah, right...), it's still by far the better move for Apple to tell Nokia to go fuck themselves and pay them a couple of bucks per iPhone they sell, and keep kicking everyone else's asses.

Nokia is pulling a classic Microsoft here... attack those who have better products than your own instead of improving your own products and business model.

I've never had much desire for Nokia cell phones or even cell phones in general. IPhone changed all of that due to it's combination of ease of use, App Store and it's syncing features.

However before buying an iPhone I had watched the development of the N800 series devices and frankly was waiting for Nokia to do one right. Several iterations later they still haven't grasped what the market wants or needs.

For one they put a ARM chip in the N800s and then failed to leverage the built in GPU. Contrast that with Apple going all out to leverage the GPU in it's Touch OS, including OpenGL. For what ever reason Nokia barely leveraged the GPU and never achieved respectable graphics performance.

The second issue with the N800 revolved around their core apps. Clearly it is the vendors responsibility to provide core applications and the required syncing features to solve user problems. For one this means user syncing of the E-Mail and contacts apps with similar apps on the major platforms. From what I can see Nokia never took charge of the core apps and made sure they where high quality communicative apps. Again contrast this with APple and their E-Mail and Contacts apps which are continually improving and after a few glitches sync to the major platforms. That is E-Mail/Contacts, what has surprised me with iPhone is the utility of having Safari sync which can be awfully useful. The point is Nokia doesn't invest in it's software in a way that attracks user or developers.

Nokia uses a lot of Open software in it's N800 which I actually like being a long time Linux user. However they have continously come up short promoting the platform to developers. Attracking developers, especially developers looking to make money, assures adoption of your platform. Unfortunately N800 is a messed up platform with a lack of commitment. Contrast this with iPhone & Touch. Touch has a lot of open software underneath but it is tied together with one great use API. An API that is well supported, under continous improvement and attractting developers. In fact it is attracting more developers than I rationally expected and certainly more unique apps than imagined. Touch practically promoted itsself while the N800 drove developers away.

What I'm trying to say here is that somebody at Nokia likely had a good vision of what the N800 series could have been but apparently never got the backing of management to do it right. There have been off the record comments that Nokia never funded the N series team in a way that allowed for a great product. Contrast this with Apple who saw a great frame work for a tablet and how that could be reworked into a cell phone. Then the entire company was refocused on getting it right and out the door. Even if that meant other things slipped.

In any event this focus on one Nokia product can explain a lot of issues at the company. Their huge slide in profits have really nothing to do with Apple, it is a leadership problem plain and simple. It is about living in the technology darkages and not seeing the world change around you. When you go up against a company focused on changing the world around us you end up unequiped to deal with the challenges.

So this does bias me against Nokia and their being ethical in this case. Right now it looks like an unabashed money grab to make up for their lack of investment.



Dave

Actually Apple and Nokia have been negotiating for years but it got to the point where Nokia was not getting what they thought they deserved and Apple decided that if Ericsson was licensing the tech from Nokia and Apple bought Ericsson technology then they cleared the licensing hurdle. Nokia does not see it this way. There will most likely be some sort of IPR exchange, maybe some cash but there is very little technology in the cellular world that Nokia did not invent, or at least have a hand in. As far as cellular technology goes, Apple needs Nokia more than Nokia needs Apple. The lawyers will get fat and the consumers will pay the costs somewhere down the road. This should be settled CEO to CEO to save a bundle of cash and starve a few lawyers. From some of the Nokia insiders here in Finland, they see this as a real case that needs to be pursued. Not some sort of sour grapes, and given Apples somewhat litigious history, they should not be surprised that this is coming their way. If this were the other way around, Apple would marching in the streets with the iBelievers en mass. In the end, I just want a new Apple TV, and a new iTablet or whatever it is called, and DRM free video so I can watch what I want on any device I choose.

Which same thing? Multitouch screens? Gestures?

I don't know if you are naive or what, but how long do you honestly think that it takes to investigate a brand spanking new handset, develop a case, spend time working with the purported infringer and everything that else is involved in correctly litigating a patent lawsuit?

MAgically instant, or a slow process?

More Apple zealotry. If the shoe were on the other foot, you would be: "hey Apple kick their asses", but now that Apple is presumably in the wrong, they are the victim. Such wonderful passive aggressive reasoning. If Apple is wrong then they are wrong. Pure and simple. By the way, Nokia has a kinetic scrolling device with multi-touch. What they do not have are the gestures but they are developing a 3D touch model, so in a year or so gestures will be outdated.

Please stop making Apple users look bad with such mindless tripe.

Bingo!!

Yes. That's the way we do it here. (crazy; I know)

I think it's a bad behaviour to cut a text and put it out of context.

Didn't the US government develop CDMA, after all it has been in use for a long time before cellphones

Why are you worried so much about the N800, it came out almost 3 years ago, the N810 was over 2 years ago, things have changed since then

I don't know if CDMA was developed by US government but CDMA is a channel access method used by a lot of technologies. One of them is CDMAOne developed by QCom

Apple, like many companies, know other companies are using their patented technology. Apple, however, mostly uses it's patents for defensive purposes. So, if a company sues Apple for patent infringement, Apple will likely turn around and counter sue for patent infringement. It is highly likely Nokia is infringing on Apple patents as well. I have not seen Apple sue another company for patent infringement in as long time as I can remember unless it was sued first. It often threatens copyright and trademark violations, but not patent violations.

The problem is if you are a start -up you can't compete in the wireless arena nowadays if you don't borrow patented ideas from companies like Nokia and Erickson. This is because the network providers only support those patented standards. The big cellular companies, lock out competition though, by cross licensing their technology to the other big players for free. So, Sony can use Nokia's patented technology, and Nokia Sony's. This makes it hard for companies like Apple to enter the arena.

Interestedly enough, Apple has a license from Erickson. Nokia must just be holding out for a bigger slice then Apple is offering, or it is hoping it will have access to Apple's patents in an exchange deal.

If you want to come to the game nearly 30 years too late then you need to understand that it may cost you a little more

And one of them is GPS, and one of them was army communication devices

Yes, and Galileo also uses CDMA

Well it they have something to give, then maybe they could cross licence for free as well..


No, the spelling is Ericsson

Lol, shame how multi touch is not patented to apple

but congeats in trying to call the Microsoft ghost into the discussion

Gestures will be outdated because by then Apple will have come up with the next step and still be kicking Nokias arse.

Oh, and nice ad-hominem there... you know absolutely ZERO about me but yet you pass judgment, etc. In logic, such a move makes your argument invalid, so I won't bother saying more about this than what I've already said. You've already shown you're irrational... Talk about zealotry? Look in the mirror.


No trying. There's no difference here; Nokia is attempting to bully Apple it's that simple. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were a lawyer working for Nokia and you're familiar with what their exact strategy and reasoning behind what they're doing is.

I suggest both of you read this:

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/1...nts/#more-3898

and this:

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/1...rry/#more-3914

then hopefully you'll realize that unless you're working for Nokia and have insider information, you should realize that I'm just adding my two cents here, just like everyone else.

The reason I rarely post is because people like you have nothing better to do than spew their hate and self loathing out to other people behind the anonymity of the internet, so the real personality you possess shines through. This is a conversation for crying out loud, not a cage fight death match... but you people are acting like I'm torturing cute little snuggly puppies or something. Take a chill pill AND get a clue... sheesh.

Trying once again, Roughly drafted? Lol, why not just post www.iloveappleandtheycandonowrong.com

Jeez, at least come up with something a little less biased than roughly drafted, but that would require you getting, how you say, a clue.


ps commenting that you are just adding your two cents, then complaining about others doing the same creates the ultimately irony

score

Thanks for stepping in. It saved me from having to embarrass him more than he does to himself.

How sad that both of you are still hiding behind the anonymity of the internet to spew your over-reacting hate... you guys need to chill the F out and get a clue. The only embarrassment to me is that I'm wasting my time with this.

Oh, with respect to bias? One word for both of you: HYPOCRITE.

You're both haters. Haters, haters, haters.

Anonymous? Are you kidding me? Unless you're Bowser from Sha Na Na, you are equally hiding behind a veil of anonymity. As for finding a clue, you would be hard pressed to find one with a flashlight. You seem to be one looking to obtain residence in Steve Jobs pants as head butt sniffer. Just because no one has jumped on your misguided Apple can do no wrong bandwagon, but are remaining objective in regards to this lawsuit, we are now labeled "haters, haters, haters". You might want to start with chilling out. I am sure that double wide vein in your forehead is about to pop, spilling forth kool aid. It really has to suck being you.

Here, I will help you with a clue: http://forum.whatmobile.net/showpost...6&postcount=20

This is a very interesting entry in Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/29/n...epth-analysis/

Same article as mine but different sources. Either way it is very interesting in deed. If Nokia chose only the 10 it needs, then Nokia might have a slam dunk. However, will this give the other guys incentive to go after Apple (rightly) as well?