Nokia continues to believe that the selected nano-SIM proposal is technically inferior and not suitable for a number of applications, but the ETSI Smart Card Platform Technical Committee has now made its decision. Nokia believes that the existing micro-SIM (3FF) will continue to be a preferred option for many manufacturers and devices and so ultimately the market will decide whether 4FF is widely adopted.
As Nokia believes that ETSI has taken steps to address Nokia’s original concerns over the standardization process, we have advised ETSI that we are prepared to license any Nokia patents which are essential to implement the standard, on FRAND terms.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, Nokia, the market most certainly will decide.
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Apple uses clout in attempt to push smartphones to use ‘nano-SIM’ cards – March 21, 2012
Microsoft and Nokia hit back at Google 'patent troll' claims - The Guardian
The smartphone patent wars have heated up further, with Microsoft and Nokia hitting back at claims by Google that they are feeding mobile patents to a "troll" company that aims to extract billions of pounds of payments from handset makers and so push up prices.
In a regulatory complaint filed on Thursday evening with the European Commission, the US Department of Justice and the US Federal Trade Commission, Google says that the two companies "are colluding to raise the costs of mobile devices for consumers, creating patent trolls that sidestep promises both companies have made. They should be held accountable, and we hope our complaint spurs others to look into these practices."
Google is understood to be concerned that a company called Mosaid, which is building a large patent portfolio, will begin suing makers of handsets running Google's Android mobile software over claims that it infringes them. Last September Mosaid, based in Ottawa, took control of 2,000 Nokia patents, including a large number deemed essential to various phone standards. Microsoft is also understood to have given it control of a significant number of patents.
Microsoft brushed off Google's claim as the "desperate tactic" of a company facing regulatory questions about its dominance of online search and digital advertising.
Nokia also rejected Google's complaint, saying that any suggestion of collusion was wrong. "Both companies have their own IPR [intellectual property rights] portfolios and strategies and operate independently," it said in a statement. "Nokia has made regular patent divestments over the last five years. In each case, any commitments made for standards essential patents transfer to the acquirer and existing licenses for the patents continue. Had Google asked us, we would have been happy to confirm this, which could then have avoided them wasting the [European] commission's time and resources on such a frivolous complaint."
But the Finnish company then twisted the knife, adding: "We agree with Google that Android devices have significant IP infringement issues, and would welcome constructive efforts to stop unauthorised use of Nokia intellectual property. Nokia has an active licensing program with more than 40 licensees. Companies who are not yet licensed under our standard essential patents should simply approach us and sign up for a licence."
Nokia is suing Viewsonic, an Android device maker, claiming that it has not licensed standards-essential patents for a tablet being sold in Europe. European and US rules say that when a company submits a patent as essential to a standard, it must also agree to license it on "fair, reasonable and non-discriminary" (Frand) terms – so that licences cannot be withheld unreasonably, nor charged on different bases for different licencees. Equally, the patent holder can reasonably sue if a company implements the standard but does not license the patent – as Nokia claims Viewsonic is doing.
Google declined a request to share the precise content of its complaint lodged with the regulatory bodies with the Guardian. While it this week won a significant victory over Oracle, which had claimed that Android infringed both copyright and patents on its Java programming language acquired from Sun, a significant number of Android handset makers have signed per-handset licences with Microsoft over patents, while Apple is suing Samsung, HTC and Motorola – three of the largest Android makers – over patents.
"Patent trolls", formally known as "non-practising entities", are companies which own patents but which do not make anything of their own. They then use the threat or procedure of litigation to force companies that they say infringe patents to pay licensing fees. However, Mosaid does not only use patents; it is also a manufacturer of Nand flash memory.
Google's attack on Microsoft and Nokia marks the escalation of the legal brawls among technology giants trying to gain the upper hand in the rapidly growing market for mobile computing.
Motorola Mobility, now owned by Google and acquired for its 17,000-strong patent portfolio, has so far resisted efforts by Microsoft to pay for its use of Android – instead hitting back with its own patents on video and other systems. But in April the EC opened an inquiry into Motorola's refusal to license "standards-essential" patents used for 3G to Apple and for H.264 video decoding to Microsoft.
Nokia joined forces with Microsoft last year when it agreed to adopt Windows Phone as the operating system on its cellphones.
Mosaid has made it clear it believes it is sitting on a potential goldmine.
After Nokia and Microsoft sold it the patents, Mosaid estimated the royalties from the intellectual property rights could bring it more $1bn in revenue over the next decade. Under terms of the sale, Mosaid keeps one-third of the revenue from the patent royalties with the remainder going to Nokia and Microsoft. That means Mosaid's revenue estimates imply the patents could generate licensing fees of $3bn during the next decade.
Mosaid declined to comment on Thursday. It is already Apple for alleged patent infringement in a Texas federal court.
Some of the patents cover parts of open-source software known as the Linux kernel, a form of freely available computer coding that Google used in building its Android operating system. Google alleges Mosaid is reneging on a commitment that Nokia made in a 2005 regulatory filing when the company pledged not to enforce patents against software relying on the Linux kernel.
Nokia hits back at Google, says Android infringes on its patents - Marin Independent Journal
HELSINKI -- Nokia struck back at Google (GOOG) on Friday over its accusation that the cellphone maker was colluding with Microsoft to make money out of their patents.
"Though we have not yet seen the complaint, Google's suggestion that Nokia and Microsoft are colluding on intellectual property rights is wrong," Nokia spokesman Mark Durrant said on Friday.
"Both companies have their own intellectual property rights portfolios and strategies and operate independently."
He also said that some Android devices had "significant (intellectual property) infringement issues" relating to Nokia's patents.
Google, in a formal complaint to the European Commission, said Microsoft and Nokia had transferred 1,200 patents to MOSAID, a so-called "patent troll" which makes money by taking legal action over patent infringements.
Nokia and Microsoft cooperate on smartphones that compete with Google's Android devices. The Finnish phone maker shifted from its own Symbian software in favor of Microsoft Windows in February 2011.
Google's accusations highlight current cut-throat competition in the mobile phone business where companies, including Nokia, are fighting to assert intellectual property rights over wireless technologies.
Nokia's patents have become valuable and stable assets for the
company, particularly at a time when falling handset sales and a loss of market share threaten its future.Nokia has already sued Android device makers HTC and ViewSonic for infringing its patents and is expected to go after others.
Nokia already earns $618 million a year from its patent royalties in key areas of mobile telephony and some analysts have said a more determined application of its patent rights could boost its income by hundreds more millions of euros a year.
Microsoft said earlier that Google's complaint about antitrust in the smartphone industry was a "desperate tactic" from a company that controls more than 95 percent of mobile search and advertising.
Google lashes out at Microsoft, Nokia - Beeld
San Francisco - Google lashed out at Microsoft and Nokia in a regulatory complaint, accusing them of illegally feeding mobile patents to a technology troll scavenging for billions of dollars in licensing fees that threaten to drive up the prices of cellphones and other wireless devices.
The claims were spelled out in a complaint filed with the European Commission, the chief regulator on that continent. Google also shared the complaint with the US Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.
Microsoft brushed off Google's accusations as the "desperate tactic" of a company facing regulatory questions about its dominance of online search and digital advertising. Efforts to reach Nokia representatives at the company's headquarters in Finland late on Thursday were unsuccessful.
Google's attack on Microsoft and Nokia escalates a legal brawl among technology giants trying to gain the upper hand in the rapidly growing market for mobile computing.
Most of the fighting so far has been in the courtroom, where lawsuits and countersuits alleging patent infringements have been filed by Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Oracle, Nokia, and HTC, among others.
Royalties
Some of the missives have been aimed at Google and its business partners using its Android software for smartphones and other mobile devices. To protect itself, Google picked up 17 000 mobile patents in a $12.5bn acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings that was completed last week.
Nokia joined forces with Microsoft in 2011 when it agreed to adopt Windows as the operating system on its cellphones.
Google's complaint centres on 2 000 wireless patents that Nokia and Microsoft sold in September to Mosaid Technologies Inc, a company that specialises in collecting royalties on intellectual property.
Companies that focus on extracting patent royalties instead of innovating are derisively known in the technology industry as "trolls".
Mosaid has made it clear it believes it is sitting on a potential gold mine.
After Nokia and Microsoft handed over the patents, Mosaid estimated the royalties from the intellectual property rights could bring it more $1bn in revenue over the next decade.
Under terms of the sale, Mosaid keeps one-third of the revenue from the patent royalties with the remainder going to Nokia and Microsoft. That mean's Mosaid's revenue estimates imply the patents could generate licensing fees of $3bn during the next decade.
Competition
Mosaid declined to comment. The company, which is based in Ottawa, Ontario, already is suing iPhone and iPad maker Apple for alleged patent infringement in a Texas federal court.
The portfolio that Nokia and Microsoft transferred to Mosaid is valuable because about 1 200 of the patents are considered to be "essential" to the operation of most mobile devices running on 2G, 3G and 4G wireless networks.
Some of the patents cover parts of open-source software known as the Linux Kernel, a form of freely available computer coding that Google used in building its Android operating system.
Google alleges Mosaid is reneging on a commitment that Nokia made in a 2005 regulatory filing when the company pledged not to enforce patents against software relying on the Linux Kernel.
"Nokia and Microsoft are colluding to raise the costs of mobile devices for consumers, creating patent trolls that side-step promises both companies have made," Google said in a statement. "They should be held accountable, and we hope our complaint spurs others to look into these practices."
In its statement, Microsoft alluded to investigations in the US and Europe into allegations that Google has been abusing its influential role in internet search to thwart competition and increase advertising rates.
Google "is complaining about antitrust in the smartphone industry when it controls more than 95% of mobile search and advertising", Microsoft said. "This seems like a desperate tactic on their part."
Nokia Siemens Networks Completes Microwave Transport Business Sale - FOXBusiness
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Network equipment vendor Nokia Siemens Networks (NOK, SI) said Friday it has completed the divestment of its microwave transport business, including associated operational support systems and related support functions, to DragonWave, Inc. (DRWI).Vodafone CEO's pay hits £14 million for 2012 - The Guardian
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