Apple faces the prospect of having to pay up to $ 1 billion to Nokia, the biggest cellphone manufacturer in the world, for the use of the technology of the Finland’s company in all iPhones sold so far, if Apple lose a lawsuit filed by Nokia, analysts say .
Nokia filed the lawsuit in the United States on Thursday, claiming that Apple had infringed 10 patents and accusing its manufacturer’s iPhone trying to take advantage of investment in technology, Nokia.
Apple, which came late to the mobile phone market, gobbled up a considerable market share of high standard, but has little intellectual property compared to its competitors in the industry, working under agreements to share licenses.
Analyst Niel Mawston from Strategy Analytics, said that Apple could end up paying for Nokia any value between 200 million and 1 billion dollars for patents used in 34 million iPhone sold so far. Analysts say that Nokia has good arguments to prove their right to compensation, since it is one of the main holders of patents on mobile technologies, along with Qualcomm and Ericsson.
Nokia said in its application that offered several different prices to Apple, both for each individual patent as a package, but the U.S. firm rejected the offer.
That’s a big dog fight!
Via: Folha.
Its worth to comment only after seeing how apple fights this situation
worth to comment after seeing Apple explanation
Looks like Apple had all these patents signed off with Ericsson should get really interesting if Nokia is just trying it on.
From Reuters article:
“An Ericsson spokesman said on Friday the company has a licensing deal with Apple.”
Not a big deal – at worst Apple will have to pay some money, at worst Nokia will lose some control of their IP. Apple could always buy one of someone who has pooled patents with Nokia!
The real issue is weather anyone can produce a viable alternative to the iPhone and it’s ecosystem!
Apple is hardly in a bad situation. The high number floated is $1B. More likely number is nearer $500M. Still a lot but affordable to Apple. Also, not enough to really help Nokia who lost some $800M.
Moreover, this is probably just act 1 in actions yet to be played out. Perhaps Apple is preparing to sue Nokia for infringing their patents related to touch screens? I doubt that Apple would just decide not to license the technology from Nokia for frivolous reasons.
Give it a year and see how it plays out.
There are bad situations, and there are BAD situations. Virtually all major tech companies have patent cases going on, that in a worst case situation could cost them a lot of money. They’re usually settled out of court for much less than the maximum, because the tech involved is so complex that everyone infringes somewhere, and the companies often eventually just agree to cross license each others’ patents. On the other hand, the fact that it’s got this far suggests that Apple’s legal dept believes that either it hasn’t actually infringed, or that Nokia is asking for way more money than any court would award it.
Apart from that, the way Apple’s financials are at the moment, even having to pay the top end figure of a billion dollars would just be a minor inconvenience. This isn’t a bad situation for Apple, this is a fruit being annoyed by a mosquito.