Nokia Sues HTC, RIM, ViewSonic for Patent Infringement

Nokia ramped up the patent wars Wednesday by filing suit against HTC, Research in Motion, and ViewSonic.

The handset maker sued the companies in the U.S. and Germany for infringing on 45 of its patents. Nokia filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) against HTC, and filed suits with the district court in Delaware against HTC and ViewSonic, in the Regional Court in Dusseldorf against HTC and RIM, and in the Regional Courts in Mannheim and Munich against all three firms.

Several high-profile companies have looked to the German courts in their patent battles recently, including Apple, Samsung, Motorola, and Microsoft. Just today, Motorola won an injunction against Microsoft's Xbox and Windows 7 in the country, thanks to a ruling from the Mannheim Regional Court.

"Nokia is a leader in many technologies needed for great mobile products," Louise Pentland, chief legal officer at Nokia, said in a statement. "We have already licensed our standards essential patents to more than 40 companies. Though we'd prefer to avoid litigation, Nokia had to file these actions to end the unauthorized use of our proprietary innovations and technologies, which have not been widely licensed."

Among the technologies infringed, Nokia cited hardware like dual function antennas and power management and multimode radios, as well as software like app stores, multitasking, navigation, conversational message display, dynamic menus, data encryption, and retrieval of email attachments on a mobile device.

"Many of these inventions are fundamental to Nokia products," Pentland continued. "We'd rather that other companies respect our intellectual property and compete using their own innovations, but as these actions show, we will not tolerate the unauthorized use of our inventions."

In a statement, HTC said it "has been a licensee of Nokia on wireless essential patents since 2003. We are waiting to receive a complaint and won't have any comments until our legal team has received and reviewed it."

"ViewSonic is aware of this legal action," the company said. "We are taking appropriate measures to protect our interests."

RIM said it does not comment on pending litigation.

In recent years, Nokia tangled with Apple over 10 patents. In June 2011, the companies concluded their fight, with Apple being forced to pay Nokia an undisclosed amount in licensing fees for all past and ongoing use of Nokia technology.

Nokia has had a rough couple of months, with Samsung recently topping Nokia as the biggest mobile phone maker for the first time in 14 years. Nokia spent much of last year winding down support for Symbian and focusing its attention on Windows Phone. While the Lumia 900 was well-received by reviewers in the U.S., however, it's had a tough time competing against the iPhone and Android smartphones.

(Published by PCMag.com - May 2, 2012)