It's all going wrong for Nokia at the moment. The wait for MeeGo is leaving people frustrated and their Symbian OS is taking a battering from Android and Apple and now the later are kicking the Finnish company whilst their down and hitting them with the dreaded 'legal proceedings.'
In an ongoing dispute with Nokia, Apple has now gone transatlantic and started legal proceedings against Nokia in the UK.
The legal clash stems from Apple's claims that Nokia have breached some of its patents surrounding 'touch-screen and interface techniques. ' Apple accused Nokia of the infringements in the US and are now also pointing the finger at Nokia UK.
Nokia, are fighting fire with fire and have counter-accused Apple of infringing on their patents on radio, interfacing, camera use and antenna design (to name but a few.)
The International Trade Commission (ITC) have been roped to try and sort the situation out and will decide if either company has a case to answer sometime next year. With ITC having the power to ban US imports of infringing devices on either side it's getting pretty serious.
The ITC are already knee deep in Apple's affairs and are still to rule on infringement accusations from HTC and Elan Microelectronics, either of which could theoretically see the iPhone banned from US stores.
It’s going to be a long time before any of the cases actually hit the courtroom and by then they will probably fizzle out but if they don’t there’s going to be some interesting news next year.
Source: theregister