New court fight: after Apple pleads conspiracy, Nokia responds with lawsuit [atualizado 2x]

As the famous and long-running fight between Apple and Samsung runs in the courts, Ma's lawyer team now has another hard job ahead of it this time, against the Finnish Nokia.

Earlier today, the Patently Apple reported that the Cupertino giant has opened a “major antitrust case” against numerous Nokia partners including Acacia Research Corporation, the one that involved a $ 22.1 million fine against Apple, and also Core Wireless Licensing, which lost a lawsuit of $ 100 million against Apple, alleging conspiracy in licensing fees for various patents.

THE FOSS Patents published the action in full:

In a kind of "response" to this, Nokia has just announced the opening of lawsuits against Apple both in the United States and in Europe (more specifically, in Germany), alleging infractions of 32 (!) Different patents.

Ilkka Rahnasto, head of patent business at Nokia, stated that "after several years of negotiations trying to reach an agreement to cover Apple's use of these patents, we are now moving to defend our rights".

This is not the first time that Apple and Nokia have faced each other in court. The last fight ended there in mid-2011, precisely with the licensing of patents; by the way, since then, the thing started to degringolar again. Years later, Nokia even supported Apple in its fight against Samsung.

We will monitor the progress and the appearance of more details about this new dispute.

Update · 12/22/2016 s 16:17

Just a day later, Nokia has already announced an expansion of lawsuits against Apple now encompassing 40 patents in 11 different countries. The inventions cover technologies related to screens, interfaces, software, antennas, chipsets and video coding, most of which came from the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent in 2013.

An Apple spokesman made a statement about the dispute over TechCrunch:

Apple focused on innovation and our teams are dedicated to creating the best products on the planet. We respect intellectual property and have always been willing to pay a fair price to guarantee patent rights covering technologies in our products. Unfortunately, Nokia has refused to license its patents on a fair basis and is now using patent troll to try to extort money from Apple and apply a fee of royalties Apple's own inventions that it has nothing to do with. We are taking sides with inventors everywhere, fighting against this absurd anti-competitive practice.

The financial market did not react well to Nokia's positioning, whose shares fell nearly 5% on Thursday.

Update II · 01/24/2017 s 15:14

THE International Trade Commission (ITC) of the United States confirmed today that it will investigate Nokia's complaints against Apple, without giving any statement for the time being.

(via Fortune)