Nokia sues Apple for patent infringement

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 the company’s patents cover many important technologies used in smartphones, tablets, personal computers and similar devices. In a press release Nokia states that since agreeing a license covering some patents from the Nokia Technologies portfolio in 2011, Apple has declined subsequent offers made by Nokia to license other of its patented inventions which are used by many of Apple's products. Ilkka Rahnasto, head of Patent Business at Nokia, said: "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." These actions have been filed with the Regional Courts in Dusseldorf, Mannheim and Munich in Germany and the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, with 32 patents in suit across all of the actions, covering technologies such as display, user interface, software, antenna, chipsets and video coding. Nokia is in the process of filing further actions in other jurisdictions.