filing a complaint on Friday with the U.S. International Trade Commission in a bid to block the importation of Nokia phones. The move is more of a nuisance than a threat, given Nokia's paltry share of the U.S. market.
The complaint notice, but no details, were filed on the ITC's Web site.
The new complaint is the latest in the legal chess game that Nokia started in October, when it filed a suit in U.S. District Court of Delaware, charging Apple with infringing 10 patents covering wireless data transfer, speech coding, security and encryption. Nokia alleges that all iPhone models infringe on these patents.
7 keys to the ultimate smartphone
After Nokia's yin, Apple yanged: the computer maker countersued in December,Acer BATCL50L Battery,Acer Aspire One Battery, alleging that Nokia smartphones were infringing on 13 Apple patents. Feb. 8 is the deadline for Nokia's response to that filing.
A Bloomberg story recorded Nokia's non-response to Apple's new ITC complaint: "Nokia will study the complaint when it is received and continue to defend itself vigorously," Nokia spokesman Mark Durrant said by text message Monday.laptop battery "However this does not alter the fact that Apple has failed to agree to appropriate terms for using Nokia technology and has been seeking a free ride on Nokia's innovation since it shipped the first iPhone in 2007.
Nokia's global share the Symbian-based phone market has been steadily eroding. Bloomberg cited Gartner data: Nokia's share globally fell to 39.3% from 42.3% of the market in the third quarter, mainly at the expense of Apple and Research in Motion, and more recently of phones based on the Android operating system. Though Nokia still has the dominant global market share for mobile phones, it has not come up with a big North American hit in the smaller but fast growing and lucrative market for higher-end smartphones.
The Delaware suits possibly could be put on hold if either company is successful in getting the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office to review the contested patents. Reuters reports that Nokia has successfully attacked mobile-related patents held by Qualcomm in the mid-2000s, and by InterDigital more recently. (On Monday, in an unrelated legal battle, Nokia announced that a U.K. court had ruled in its favor against the German patent licensing firm IPCom. The latter had tried to charge Nokia for using the patents, but the court ruled the claims were unreasonable. IPCom said it will appeal.)
The Reuters story notes that Nokia has cross-licensing agreements with 40 companies, including all the top cell phone makers except Apple.
Nick Farrel, writer with The Inquirer.net, Acer BATCL50L Battery,Acer Aspire One Battery, probably spoke for many when he wrapped up his recent summary of the patent warfare with this conclusion: "What the mobile phone industry is waiting for is for Apple and Nokia to come up with an agreement to cross-license each other's technology, Acer Aspire One Battery, stop arguing and just get on with it."
Read more about personal tech in ITworld's Personal tech section
Apple COO blasts netbook concept
Netbooks run counter to the general trend of progressively larger and more powerful computers, but they are nonetheless gaining popularity. And why not? They're cheap--and for ordinary people who don't need to run power applications, more than adequate for day-to-day use. And in today's economy, cheap is good.
But last week, Apple's COO Tim Cook disputed my theory of netbooks gaining market share, calling them "junky" and unusable. I'm not surprised. Apple's philosophy runs completely counter to the netbook trend. "Inexpensive notebook" is not something we usually associate with Apple. But Cook went a little overboard when he said "It's a stretch to call them a personal computer." Of course, the netbook is a personal computer, and a good one, at that. But Cook suggested that people who want to use a computer to surf the web or check email should buy an iPhone instead. What Cook doesn't realize is that people who buy netbooks are interested in saving money--not in spending a fortune every month for an iPhone contract.
It seems to me that Apple is being so quick to criticize the netbook because they feel threatened. The continuing evolution of the netbook is going to bring more power and more portability--and maybe even telephony--and that's going to eat into Apple's low end. Interesting to note also that for 2Q, Apple's overall PC shipments fell slightly, with lower-end Apple laptops representing the largest gain. Shouldn't that tell Apple something? Sure, people may want Apples, but they don't want to pay big money for them. Apple should pay attention to the netbook trend instead of dismissing it so vigorously.
Apple is in talks with HarperCollins Publishers about offering e-books for the upcoming Apple tablet device, a news report said late Monday.
Details haven't been finalized but the publisher is expected to offer the e-books with "added features" and to determine their prices itself, The Wall Street Journal said in the report,Acer BATCL50L Battery,Acer Aspire One Battery, citing unnamed sources. Apple would take a cut from the sales, it said.
Apple has also met with other publishers,Acer BATCL50L Battery but it was unknown if Apple would open a new online store for the books or sell them through iTunes, the report said.
Apple has invited reporters to an event in San Francisco on Jan. 27. The company reportedly plans to use the event to unveil a much-hyped but still unconfirmed tablet-style device that could blend e-book, Web-surfing and other multimedia functions.
HarperCollins recently said e-books could sell for higher prices if loaded with extra features like social-networking applications, video or author interviews, according to the report. The publisher's talks with Apple could pose a challenge to Amazon.com, currently the biggest player in the e-book market. Amazon sells e-books for viewing on its popular Kindle e-reader.
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