Bonum Certa Men Certa

Nokia Lets Its Inner Patent Monster Go Loose

Nokia vampire



Summary: Nokia -- facing many new difficulties -- unfortunately decides that a litigation strategy is the way to go

LONGTIME readers of Boycott Novell may already know that we have been skeptical about Nokia because of its approach towards software patents. As one of our readers from Finland put it a day ago, "It looks like the press release from Nokia about openness was a feint. It's now suing Apple. I supposed some of the Microsofters on the inside, maybe even some of the same involved in screwing HTML5, are keen on undermining Apple. You could see indications of the possibility of patent trolling from Nokia when they dropped to LGPL for their newly acquired Qt." We alluded to the subject in:



It is more or less a giveaway of the fact that Nokia is now going aggressive with patents. Apple is assaulted not just by Nokia because there is also this new case involving Ethernet patents from the nineties.

A Texas company has targeted Apple and a number of other technology companies in a new lawsuit regarding a handful of computer networking patents issued in the 1990s.


Here is information about Nokia's lawsuit against Apple (from the British press):

The Inquirer: Nokia sues Apple

NOKIA HAS called down upon itself the wrath of Steve Jobs by daring to sue the glorious Iphone religion.

Nokia dares to suggest that Apple's Iphone technology did not spring virgin from the brow of St Steve of Cappuccino but actually had been previously patented by Nokia.

It seems that the Nokian kings of Espoo claim that the Iphone infringes Nokia's patents for GSM, UMTS and wireless LAN (WLAN) standards.


BBC: Nokia suing Apple over the iPhone

Nokia, the world's biggest mobile phone maker, has said that it is suing its US rival Apple for infringing patents on mobile phone technology for the iPhone.


The Register: Nokia sues Apple over iPhone

It claimed all Apple's iPhone models shipped since the Cupertino-based firm debuted its popular device in 2007 infringed the patents.


Here is IDG's coverage and TechDirt's take on it. Basically, this is another case of a company going aggressive with patents amid its downfall. Sounds familiar? Well, Microsoft does the same thing and president of the FFII now writes: "Microsoft says royalties do not conflict with the "free" business model." He points to this new document [PDF] and argues: 'You will find the same terms from ACT copy/pasted from the Microsoft letter, such as: "respecting the owner's IPR, implement clear, transparent and balanced IPR policies which do not discriminate and allow competition among different business models, and which seek to ensure the effectiveness of procedures for IPR disclosures".'

"Basically, this is another case of a company going aggressive with patents amid its downfall.”Since ACT is a Microsoft front, such a connection between texts would almost be predictable. "It would be nice to draw a table between the two to see how they managed to use the same terms," tells us the FFII's president.

Going back to Nokia, its litigation strategy is almost akin to that of SCO, except for the fact that there may be truth in Nokia's allegations.

This behaviour from Nokia comes at a very bad time just after they hosted an event for Qt developers and around they same time that their "Linux killer" goes open source. There is new coverage about it this week, e.g.:



Ever since the announcement about Symbian going "open source" (not Free software) we have warned about Nokia and patents on numerous occasions. Not so long ago in the past we saw Symbian being used as a Trojan horse to partly legitimise software patents in the United Kingdom, for example. Nokia now owns the whole of Symbian, but it uses the "foundation" to pretend that there is Independence that's inviting to a 'community' (mostly volunteer developers and partners). It ought to be mentioned that Symbian's main man quit the foundation just a couple of days ago and Nokia reported horrific financial results a few days before that.

As for Apple, in this latest case it would be inappropriate to describe it as a victim. What goes around comes around. Apple uses threats of patent attacks against Linux-based products and now it is reportedly patenting some more customer-hostile ideas:

According to a recent patent application, Apple have applied to be recognized as the creators of “Advertisement in Operating Systems” attributed to the technology’s inventor, Steve Jobs.


As one final side note, CSIRO is an entity that we wrote about the other day because of its patent assault on the entire industry. As we put it at the time, "CSIRO is suing a lot these days [1, 2, 3] following the patent-in-a-standard scam [1, 2, 3]." Here is TechDirt's good new take on the subject:

CSIRO Taxes Innovators To Fund Innovators?



[...]

A few years back, the Australian tech research agency CSIRO was awarded a patent with several claims over basic concepts used in WiFi. While we have tremendous problems with the idea of any government agency patenting anything, CSIRO wielded this patent and aggressively fought against a bunch of large tech companies, and it recently convinced them to pay a $200 million settlement. At some point, tech firms realize it's often just cheaper to pay up than to keep fighting a bogus patent claim.


How is this helpful to development and what role does Nokia play in development if Trolltech/Qt developers are ever assigned to write patent applications rather than develop? And what if programmers are fired to give room for more lawyers (either defensive or confrontational)? It is a sad day for Nokia and those in the Free software community who trusted Nokia.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Gemini Links 16/07/2025: Tmux and OCC25 Working TLS
Links for the day
Reboots Should Never be Necessary
"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"
There's Still Hope for the World Wide Web
Let's hope that the trajectory of the Web won't be leading us to over-reliance on Google, nor will it reward worthless slopfarms
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Smolweb and Alhena 5.1.7
Links for the day
 
Links 16/07/2025: China’s Economy Grows Steadily, France Takes Action Regarding Harm to Children by GAFAM and Fentanylware (TikTok)
Links for the day
It is Not About Politics
Beware the people who try to make this about politics
Good Journalism Saves Lives
a shocking number of women die or get seriously hurt every day due to violence from a partner
Recognition of Women's Contributions to Free Software
Being passive is not an option when bad things are happening
Slopfarms Are Going to Perish Because Public Opinion is Changing
Many slopfarms will simply go offline
19 Years of Standing Up for Justice, Equality, and Truth
This week we shall take it up a notch
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 15, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Links 15/07/2025: LLM Pollution and Pushback in Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: xkcd, New Cert, and Alhena Gemlog
Links for the day
Links 15/07/2025: Press Freedom at Risk and New Facebook Blunders
Links for the day
The Danes Want GNU/Linux
David Heinemeier Hansson recently moved to GNU/Linux
Cory Doctorow Explains Why Software Freedom Matters, Whereas "Open Source" Misses the Point and Helps Monopolies
It's a very long article
BillPR (EpsteinGate-Bribed NPR) is Turning Into a Partial Slopfarm that Promotes Slop
"I went on a date with a chatbot!"
Two Weeks Passed Since Latest Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, More Expected Next Month
Blaming the debt on "AI" is just self-serving storytelling
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 14, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 14, 2025
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Gemini "Style Sheets" and Switching From Microsoft GitHub to Codeberg
Links for the day
Coming Soon: Another OSI Scandal, This One Implicating Molly de Blanc
OSI has been fairly quiet lately
Outreachy & Debian pregnancy cluster, Meike Reichle evidence
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Again, "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
Microsoft Lunduke is not trying to "protect" Linux
XBox is Rapidly Turned Into a Slopfarm by Microsoft
Slop isn't about efficiency and saving money
One of the Most Hilarious Things About the Microsoft SLAPPs
It's so ridiculous
Financial Support for the Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project
The FSF has extended until Friday its fund-raising campaign
Illegally Hiding (or Demanding Secrecy Around) Illegal Requests or Attempts at Extortion
unlawful communications like threats
Microsoft's Halloween Documents and systemd, Wayland, Etc.
Maybe one day Wayland will be widespread. Or maybe not.
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: BOFH Archive, Updating Old Palm PDAS, and Nginx vs Slop Bots
Links for the day
Ubuntu is Becoming GAFAM-Like
What does that say about Canonical and Ubuntu?
Slopfarms Which Take Real Articles About GNU/Linux and Turn Them Into Copycats Which Are False
Even before the LLM hype those were quite common
The Firm That Picks on Techrights is Accustomed to Working With Criminals
Techrights never did anything illegal. So why is it being picked on by people who work with criminals?
Microsoft Said the Mass Layoffs Were for "Investment" in "AI", But It's Also Laying Off the "AI" and "Copilot" Staff
Months ago we showed many so-called "AI" people were getting the boot and this time it's the same
DryDeadFish is Dead, Long Live DryDeadFish
We kept checking, hoping it can recover from some temporary technical issue
For Quite Some Time Already Microsoft Attracts Crackpots, Scams, and More
Occasionally we talk about the situation at IBM as there are many parallels
Links 14/07/2025: Chatbots Broken Again, McHire LLM Shows Limits of the Hype
Links for the day
Changing One's Name Won't Change One's Past
People who have earned a bad reputation are not magically "entitled" to reset
People Who Assault Women Are Not Victims of "Distress"
It seems like an American tradition. In a country with almost 50 presidents, not even one was a female.
Slashdot Media Turned Linux Journal Into a Slopfarm and Now Slashdot Actively Promotes Anti-Linux Slopfarms
Yes, "no-nonsense" apparently means actual nonsense
Adoption of Gemini Protocol Still Growing
Gemini Protocol is being obscured by the media - it doesn't help that Google 'hijacked' the word "Gemini" - but people still manage to find out about it, download a client, and use it
Links 14/07/2025: Arresting Photographers, Threats to Revoke US Citizenship Over Criticism
Links for the day
More EPO Leaks on the Way
We hope that Mr. Rowan will actually try to refute what we say and show, not merely point the finger at the messengers
Decommodification is a Corporate Strategy Against Communities
systemd is led by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft
copyleft.org 'Hijacked' by the People Who Attack the Person Who Created Copyleft
So far there's nothing "tasteless" in copyleft.org, but that can change at any time in the future
Asking People to Take Down Articles and Videos Only Makes These More Popular and "Viral"
If you do something bad, one of the worst things you can possibly do it try to silence those who speak about it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 13, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 13, 2025
Two-Thirds Towards FSF Goal, Richard Stallman to Give Talks in Europe
There are 67 left before reaching the target
Brett Wilson LLP "Takes it Personal" (Character Assassination, Not Professionalism). Everybody Can See That.
On behalf of violent men
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: Politicised Tech and "Leaving GitHub"
Links for the day