JURIST - Paper Chase: Nokia sues Apple in Europe for patent infringement

[JURIST] Finnish telecommunications company Nokia [corporate website] on Thursday filed 13 patent infringement complaints [press release] against Apple [corporate website] in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands. The complaints, filed in the UK High Court, Dusseldorf and Mannheim District Courts in Germany and the District Court of the Hague, Netherlands, accuse Apple of infringing 13 of Nokia's patents, including touchscreen technology used on the the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The complaints join 24 patent claims already filed by Nokia against Apple is US courts. In October 2009, Nokia sued [JURIST report] Apple in the US District Court for the District of Delaware [official website] for allegedly violating 10 patents on wireless technology on the iPhone. In May, Nokia filed a complaint [JURIST report] in the US District Court in the Western District for Wisconsin [official website] alleging that Apple iPad and iPhone 3G products infringe additional Nokia patents. Apple counter-sued last December, claiming Nokia had stolen 13 patents from the company.

Nokia is not the only competing corporation to have taken legal action against Apple over alleged patent infringements. Last week, a judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Washington [official website] dismissed a patent infringement lawsuit [JURIST report] by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen against Apple and 10 other companies. Patent holding company NTP filed suit [JURIST report] in July against Apple and Google, among other smart phone makers, related to the use of e-mail systems utilizing technology patented by NTP. The US International Trade Commission (ITC) [official website] launched an investigation [JURIST report] in June into allegations by HTC Corp [corporate website] accusing Apple of patent infringement on certain portable electronic devices.