Post 17: Dispute Occurred Once Again – Some News about Nokia

On Tuesday of this week, Nokia won a German patent injunction against HTC. According to FOSSPATENT’s author, Florian Mueller, Mannhein local court found HTC had violated Nokia’s power saving patent, which saves battery life when connected to a network. Nokia could also enforce a sales ban by posting a $6.5 million bond and possess the right to claim damages. At the same time, Nokia said it had asserted the power saving patent against HTC in the UK and the U.S International Trade Commission, with a hearing in the U.S to start in two months.

It seems like the competition between Nokia and HTC escalates. Nokia has collected about 40 HTC’s patent about mobile communication, and claimed that HTC violated Nokia’s intellectual property rights. Earlier this month, the Court has dismissed Nokia’s claim to HTC. Although it seems like Nokia has won this round, it is still hard to tell how much this ruling can change Germany mobile market. Plus, it is still an argument about whether this ruling is a major victory between Nokia and HTC. In HTC’s statement, they claimed the ruling only affected three devices, Wildfire S, Desire S and Rhyme, which were no longer put in the Germany market. HTC also stressed that their Germany business would not be affected by the ruling. At the same time, Nokia has hailed the victory, saying, “HTC must now respect our intellectual property rights and use their own innovation competition.” Mueller believed HTC’s statement was only partially right, and he claimed the infringement relating to these devices is “classic”, but not only these three devices.

I’m not sure if Nokia’s cheer is really about the “respect” they have about intellectual property, or the benefit the intellectual property can bring. I remember earlier this month Nokia filed brief to support Apple’s request to block sale of Samsung products. The reason Nokia gave was that once the precedent had been started, patent holders’ right to request to ban the sale of infringing products would be weakened. Interestingly, Nokia and Apple had a patent dispute in 2011. Nokia ended to pay royalties to Apple. It seems like there is no enemy forever. The companies are willing to corporate in order to maximum the profit. Nevertheless, I think Nokia is overacting on protecting their own patent as Apple. I just feel like Nokia has put too much time concentrate on their patent protection, but ignoring their innovation and advertisement. Comparing to Apple and Samsung, when is your last time to hear any new and excited products from Nokia? Several months ago, a year ago, or maybe longer. Honestly, I can’t remember it myself. It’s true that Nokia holds a lot of good patents, but how long can they live depend on their patent alone. According to the patent law, the patent term is only 20 years from the filing date of the earliest U.S application to which priority is claimed. How many of their patents will be expired in the next few years? I do agree that they should learn from Apple, but not only the way how Apple protect their intellectual properties, but also the way how they invite new devices and advertise to attract costumers.

(Nokia posted this cartoon on Twitter, named "Guess who's who" on the day when Samsung released Galaxy S4)

Nokia, remember you are a big company, but not the king of the market. Please don’t do this kindergarten thing again.