After settling a patent lawsuit in 2011, Apple and Nokia are once again locked in an international legal battle over the latter's licensing terms for technologies such as the widely utilized H.264 video codec.
In the new lawsuit, Apple is claiming that Nokia is at the core of a patent licensing conspiracy, accusations that prompted Nokia to file lawsuits against Apple over the infringement of 32 patents.
The Patent Battle History Of Apple And Nokia
The previous licensing dispute started in 2009, when Nokia claimed that Apple infringed on some of the company's patents. These patents come with fair and reasonable terms, or FRAND, as they are widely used in the technology industry, allowing companies to use them without having to pay massive licensing fees due to how important the patents are to most products.
Apple and Nokia eventually reached an agreement that saw Apple pay a one-time fee to Nokia, along with royalties for the continued usage of the patents.
The new legal battle between the two companies are technically not between Apple and Nokia, but they are both very much the big players in the dispute.
Nokia Patent Troll Conspiracy
Apple has filed lawsuits against nine patent assertion entities, at times referred to as patent trolls, that are aligned with Nokia, claiming that the group is looking to claim as much money as they could from Apple through abusive licensing terms for essential patents that should have FRAND terms.
According to Apple, the group of PAEs is assisting Nokia in a plan to "extract and extort exorbitant revenues" from the company, along with from other mobile device makers. Apple also accuses Nokia of being nothing more than a patent troll since it sold its mobile division to Microsoft two years ago, though recent rumors reveal that Nokia may be looking to make a comeback in the mobile phone industry.
Of the nine PAEs that Apple has filed a lawsuit against, one named Acacia Research Corporation has sued Apple 42 times over the past 10 years. Apple is looking to have the named PAEs prevented from launching any further disputes on essential patents.
Nokia Responds To Apple Accusations
In response to Apple's actions, Nokia has filed five lawsuits against Apple for patent infringements. Among the 32 patents that are the subjects of the lawsuits are ones related to software, user interfaces, displays, chipsets, antennas and video coding.
Nokia filed the lawsuits in three regional courts in Germany and in a district court in Texas, with the company said to be planning even more of such lawsuits in other locations.
In relation to the H.264 video codec, Nokia claims that Apple has refused to agree to a licensing deal to the technology on reasonable terms. Apple uses the codec in the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, iPod, Mac computers and Apple TV.
