All your technology belongs to Jobs' Mob
Apple's legal team has decided that attack is the best
form of defence in its case with Nokia. The Finnish telco had sued Jobs' Mob claiming that the
fruit themed toy maker had nicked some of its ideas. Now Apple has countersued claiming Nokia had breached 13
patents which sprang fully formed from the genius of Steve Jobs.
Apple vice president Bruce Sewell said in a brief
statement said other companies must compete with us by inventing their own
technologies, not just by stealing ours. Nasty words which probably would never have been spoke
had not Nokia in October dared to say that Apple had stolen 10 Nokia mobile
phone technology patents with the iPhone.
Nokia's patents cover "wireless data, speech coding,
security and encryption” and are infringed by all Apple iPhone models shipped
since the iPhone was introduced in 2007. At the time Ilkka Rahnasto, deputy head of Nokia's legal
department, accused Apple at the time of "attempting to get a free ride on
the back of Nokia's innovation." Obviously this explains the wording of Sewell's comment
above.
It also might be the inspiration for a comment in the
court documents that says that “Nokia is trying to buoy a sinking position in
the mobile telephone market by getting its hands on iPhone technology and
charging "exorbitant" fees for patented technology allegedly
intrinsic to industry standards”. We would have thought that charging huge wodges of cash
for technology would be a glass house that Apple would not want to throw
stones in. Apple claimed that the only reason Nokia was suing was
that it could not make money these days.
"Nokia has been attempting to use its allegedly
standards-essential patents to help regain what Nokia has lost in the
marketplace," the court papers say.
Actually all that sort of rhetoric will be ignored by a
court and is probably for the newspapers. What will probably happen is that both sides will come to
an arrangement and neither side will tell the media. However Nokia seems to have miffed Jobs' Mob by making
its complaints about the iPhone's lack of originality public.