12.22.16
Nokia is Now Officially a Patent Troll, Almost 6 Years After Microsoft Turned It Into One
As we correctly predicted way back in 2011…
Nokia suing everyone… except Microsoft.
Summary: Few days before Christmas Nokia decides that the backlash from the media would be minimal enough to finally show its true colours and rear its ugly head again, putting a tax on phones that actually sell (unlike Nokia’s)
VERY LATE LAST NIGHT (as late as 2 AM) we wrote about a story which Nokia probably hoped the media would not notice/cover all that much (hence the timing/date in the year). Nokia is a patent troll now. “Meanwhile,” as this article puts it, “Apple has accused Nokia of using the ‘tactics of a patent troll’.” It’s not just about Apple as Nokia will go after Android OEMs next (if it hasn’t already).
It’s the ‘Microsoft effect’. The company likes turning other (usually vulnerable) companies into a pile of patents, weaponised against Microsoft’s rivals. There are many examples of that which we’ve covered here over the years.
“It’s the ‘Microsoft effect’. The company likes turning other (usually vulnerable) companies into a pile of patents, weaponised against Microsoft’s rivals.”We have already found about a hundred reports about this in English, in spite of Christmas absence of many reporters (even from large British publishers, US publishers and several people at IDG [1, 2]). The Finnish English-speaking media touches the subject and Wall Street media puts it behind a paywall. Tripp Mickle and Matthias Verbergt say that “Apple Inc. and Nokia Corp. filed competing lawsuits over intellectual property used in the iPhone and other Apple products.”
Worth seeing in this case is what Apple finds out about the network of trolls (typically shrouded in secrecy). With evidence admissible by the courts about the patent trolls of Nokia and Microsoft we can improve our information here (growingly extensive and occasionally praised by people who come here in order to understand cryptic trolls.). Florian Müller says “First court hearings in the new Nokia v. Apple dispute will most probably take place in Munich in a few months. I’ll probably go and listen.”
“We believe that the date of the press release was designed (or intended) to dodge negative press coverage.”He also quotes Apple’s spokesperson as saying that Nokia “is now using the tactics of a patent troll to attempt to extort money from Apple…”
He is “not mincing words anymore,” Müller adds, and someone from Finland agrees with him. Finns do not blindly support Nokia. We speak to some Finns who are extremely upset at Nokia. It’s a national embarrassment to some.
As for IAM, it thinks it’s favourable to have patent lawsuit from a troll-like Nokia, but it lacks a vital
disclosure; Nokia’s patent troll MOSAID (now called “Conversant”) has paid IAM, which recently did a lot of puff pieces for it. Maybe that’s just IAM’s business model…
IAM says “Apple is against patent owners doing what they want with their patents to maximise their value.”
Whose value? And to whose advantage? And at whose expense?
“Not sure how that helps R&D,” IAM says, but Benjamin Henrion has already responded to them by saying “that helps P&L [patents and litigation], not R&D.”
We believe that the date of the press release was designed (or intended) to dodge negative press coverage. █
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