Nokia sues Apple over iPhone

Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia has filed a lawsuit against Apple alleging that the iPhone infringes 10 of its patents.

Nokia filed a 30-page complaint in the Delaware District Court on 22 October. It lists 10 US patents that, it says, are "essential" to the GSM, UMTS and IEEE 802.11 wireless standards.

The complaint claims that "Nokia has made various offers to Apple for F/RAND (Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory) terms and conditions of a license agreement... either individually or together with other Nokia essential patents. "

"Apple has rejected Nokia's offers... and thereby refused to compensate Nokia on F/RAND terms," it added. "Nokia has no choice but to file this Complaint in order to enforce its right to be compensated."

The patents in question include five detailing techniques for wireless transmission of data, two for speech coding and three for security and encryption techniques. The earliest, which Nokia claims is essential to the GSM, UMTS and 802.11 standards, dates from 1998.

Nokia claims that it has agreements with "approximately 40 companies, including virtually all the leading mobile device vendors", licensing those firms to use the technologies in question.

"The basic principle in the mobile industry is that those companies that contribute in technology development to establish standards create intellectual property, which others then need to compensate for," said Nokia vice-president Ilkka Rahnasto. "Apple is also expected to follow this principle. "

A spokesperson for Apple said the company "doesn't comment on pending litigation".

News of the lawsuit follows financial results that throw the companies' current fortunes into stark contrast. On 15 October Nokia declared a quarterly loss of 559m Euro, while on 19 October Apple posted quarterly profits of $1.67bn.