Nokia sues Apple for infringing technology patents

Finland's Nokia Corp on Wednesday said it had sued iPhone maker Apple Inc for allegedly violating 32 of its technology patents. Nokia said it has filed a number of complaints against Apple in Germany and the US, alleging that Apple products infringe a number of Nokia patents.

Nokia said it has filed suits in connection with 32 of its patents against Apple in the Regional Courts in Dusseldorf, Mannheim and Munich in Germany and the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

These actions cover technologies such as display, user interface, software, antenna, chipsets and video coding. Nokia said it is in the process of filing further actions in other jurisdictions.

''As one of the world's leading innovators, and following the acquisition of full ownership of NSN in 2013 and Alcatel-Lucent in 2016, Nokia now owns three valuable portfolios of intellectual property. Built on more than EUR 115 billion invested in R&D over the past twenty years, our tens of thousands of patents cover many important technologies used in smart phones, tablets, personal computers and similar devices,'' Nokia said.

Apple, which had in 2011 agreed to a licence covering some patents from the Nokia Technologies portfolio, has declined subsequent offers made by Nokia to license other of its patented inventions, but these are used by many of Apple's products, Nokia pointed out.

"Through our sustained investment in research and development, Nokia has created or contributed to many of the fundamental technologies used in today's mobile devices, including Apple products.

After several years of negotiations trying to reach agreement to cover Apple's use of these patents, we are now taking action to defend our rights," Ilkka Rahnasto, head of patent business at Nokia, said.

Apple, meanwhile, sued Acacia Research Corp and Conversant Intellectual Property Management Inc on Tuesday, accusing them of colluding with Nokia to extract and extort exorbitant revenues unfairly and anticompetitively from Apple.

Nokia is a global leader in mobile phone technologies that are at the heart of the connected world. Powered by the research and innovation of Nokia Bell Labs, Nokia Network Technologies provide end-to-end communications service to governments, large enterprises and consumers.

Once the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, Nokia was caught on the wrong foot by the rise of smartphones and eclipsed by Apple and Samsung. In September 2013, it entered into a deal to sell its entire handset business to Microsoft in 2014 and now focuses on telecoms network equipment. (See: Microsoft to acquire Nokia's handset business for $7.1 bn).