Apple Sued Over iPhone….Is A War About To Start?

Nokia has officially declared war on Apple. The reason behind this is based on 10 patents relating to wireless technologies that we see on the iPhone.

Now pun intended here, but Nokia hasn’t been doing great over the last couple of years it has to be said, and in fact last quarter they lost $832 million according to theappleblog. So I can’t help but think that this is a little bad on Nokia’s image, as legal action that’s taken should have nothing to do with market share or how a company is performing etc. but if it does turn out that Apple have done something wrong, then of course Nokia will be right to sue. Nokia have added though that the reason behind this lawsuit is strictly on “principle only”.

According to theappleblog, the patents in question relate to GSM, UMTS, and wireless LAN standards covering "wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption."

Nokia have actually come out and said that more than 40 big name companies have entered into wireless licensing agreements, however Apple still remain to be seen calling them “unprincipled”.

When I just read this, I thought to myself “but the iPhone has been out for years now….why has Nokia only just decided to do something?”. But after some research I found that Nokia did actually try or consider getting an injunction to stop Apple selling the iPhone in 2007, which eventually flopped. It has to be said though that Apple will probably settle in this situation, because one they have ongoing royality negotiations with Nokia on this topic and two it’s probably not worth the hassle and effort of trying to win, as this could affect Apple’s efforts in other areas.

My guess is that Apple knew that they were going to have to pay some royalties in some way or another to Nokia eventually and so they were pretty smart if you look at the figures. Apple have sold 21.17 million iPhone handsets as of Q2 2009, this adds up to some ridiculous amount of money for Apple and now they may owe at a guess around 10% of that to Nokia through royalties. This then at a low-end guess of around $10 per handset, means Apple will have gained somewhere around $189 million on the sale of just the iPhone….surely the royalties are just pocket change then?

Either way, it’s certainly a stepping stone for Nokia as I feel they really need to get back on track and soon!

Via theappleblog [image source: Apple]