In the latest round of case files, Nokia on Wednesday filed a case against Apple Inc for violating as much as 32 technology patents which include patents of displays, user interfaces, software, antennas, chipsets and video coding. Filed in the courts in Dusseldorf, Mannheim and Munich, Germany and the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the lawsuit appears to be a response to never ending legal actions from Apple Inc towards once the industry leader, Nokia.
Nokia said in a statement – “Since agreeing a license covering some patents from the Nokia Technologies portfolio in 2011, Apple has declined subsequent offers made by Nokia to license other of its patented inventions which are used by many of Apple’s products,” 
Interestingly, just the day before i.e. Tuesday, Apple decided to take legal action against Acacia Research Corp and Conversant Intellectual Property Management Inc for plotting with Nokia to dig out huge amounts of revenue illegally from Apple.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson from Apple, Josh Rosenstock said – “We’ve always been willing to pay a fair price to secure the rights of patents covering technology in our products,”
“Unfortunately, Nokia has refused to license their patents on a fair basis and is now using the tactics of a patent troll to attempt to extort money from Apple by applying a royalty rate to Apple’s own inventions they had nothing to do with.”
Not only this, what’s even more interesting is that Apple filed the lawsuit against Acacia, Conversant and Nokia just the day after Boris Teksler (former director of patent licensing and strategy at Apple) took over the post of Chief Executive in Ottawa-based Conversant.
For those who don’t know, based in Newport Beach, California, Acacia is a publicly traded patent licensing company. Interestingly, on of its subsidiaries recently (in September) sued Apple for patent infringement and was eventually awarded $22 million by A Texas jury.
Seems like the smartphone patent war has again taken up the heat which was first ignited about five years ago when Apple sued Samsung for various patent infringement.
Meanwhile, Nokia, after struggling to make an impact in the smartphone industry with Microsoft’s Windows platform has now sold its feature phone business to HMD Global in a 10-year licensing deal.
Image Courtesy: Android Authority