MMI Marcus and Millichap Inc

The battle for supremacy in the global smart-phone market is gradually getting intense. The legal tussle between Nokia Corp. (NOK) and Apple Inc. (AAPL) is likely to linger for many more days. Today, Nokia filed a legal suit with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) stating that Apple violates seven of its patents in all of its converged mobile devices including mobile phones, portable music players, tablets and computers.

Patent litigation issues between Nokia and Apple intensified from October 2009 when Nokia sued Apple with the Federal District Court in Delaware, alleging that Apple's legendary iPhone has violated as many as ten Nokia patents from 2007. Apple, in turn, also sued Nokia for its patent infringement. Just four days ago, the U.S. ITC found that Apple did not violate any Nokia patent as claimed by the latter.  

With the new set of law suit, Nokia now has 46 patents in litigation with Apple. Nokia announced that the company spent more than $60 billion in the last two decades to develop the wireless industry's strongest and broadest IPR portfolios, consisting of more than 10,000 patents. So far the company has entered into patent licensing agreements with around 40 mobile device makers to use its patents. However Apple did not agree with Nokia on same terms.

Nokia’s latest suit of patents include technologies such as multitasking operating systems, data synchronization, positioning, call quality and the use of Bluetooth accessories. These are the key features for any high-end smartphone. Importantly, the lucrative smartphone market is a weakest spot of Nokia. Despite being the largest mobile phone developer of the world, the company is increasingly losing smartphone market share to Apple, Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM), Samsung, and Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. (MMI).

In order to revamp its sagging smartphone business, Nokia has decided to adopt Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) developed Windows Mobile 7 software as its new platform leaving aside the company’s proprietary Symbian operating system. However, we believe the first Windows Mobile based Nokia smartphone may not come to the market before 2012. In the meantime, Nokia’s litigation filing may be viewed as a preemptive attempt to counter Apple in case the later raises any patent related issue regarding its upcoming devices, software or applications.

 
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