Nokia goes after RIM with 3 additional patents

It seems Lady Luck has something against Research in Motion. As if it didn’t have enough problems to deal with, the Canada-based Blackberry maker has been sued by Nokia. Again. Following its patent-suing spree in May, the Finnish phone manufacturer is now suing Research in Motion with three additional patents. Nokia has filed the patent lawsuits in Munich. This is in addition to the earlier lawsuits filed by Nokia against RIM in Dusseldorf (2), Mannheim (2) and Munich (3). So far, the Finland-based cell phone manufacturer has sued RIM only in Germany, while it has sued HTC and ViewSonic over some patents in the US as well.

According to a report by FOSS Patents, “Nokia's patent portfolio is hugely stronger than RIM's in terms of both standard-essential and non-standard-essential patents. RIM will probably countersue, if it hasn't already, but realistically, Nokia is going to win this sooner or later.”

Nokia goes after RIM with 3 more patents

The three new patents are:

• EP1474750 on a "method and system for storing and transferring multimedia tags" (Nokia is also asserting this one against HTC in Mannheim.)
• EP08040461 on a "method and apparatus for updating the software of a mobile terminal using the air interface"
• EP1148681 on a "method for transferring resource information"

Nokia’s earlier lawsuits against HTC, ViewSonic and RIM in Germany covered 45 hardware and software patents ranging from power management to data encryption technologies, including a complaint to the U.S. International Trade Commission against HTC. The patent lawsuits followed comments in April by Nokia that it would seek to raise more revenues from its patent portfolio.

Nokia has been pursuing patent infringement relentlessly in the last few months. Last month, barely a week after the Google Nexus 7 tablet was announced, Nokia alleged that the Nexus 7 tablet uses IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi standard, which is a Nokia patent and hasn't been licensed by either Google or Asus. "Nokia has more than 40 licensees, mainly for its standards essential patent portfolio, including most of the mobile device manufacturers. Neither Google nor Asus is licensed under our patent portfolio. Companies who are not yet licensed under our standard essential patents should simply approach us and sign up for a license," a Nokia spokesperson said.

Besides this, the Finnish company was involved in a patent tussle with Apple for more than two years only to settle the dispute. The two companies signed a license agreement and withdrew their individual set of complaints to the U.S. International Trade Commission. According to reports, it has been decided that Apple will have to pay a one-time fee and ongoing royalties to Nokia for the term of the agreement. However, financial details of the same weren’t disclosed.