Nokia Loses UK 3G Patent Battle

The UK High Court has ruled against Nokia in its battle with Bavarian intellectual property licensing company IPCom over an important 3G patent.

However, IPCom and Nokia differ sharply over the implications of the ruling, with IPCom saying it will seek an injunction against the sale of Nokia’s 3G handsets in the UK, while Nokia contends that the patent in question isn’t used in any of its current products.

Ground-breaking ruling

“As far as we know, this is the first time that an essential telecoms 3G patent was ever upheld and judged infringed in the UK – a jurisdiction well-known for being very demanding for patent holders,” said IPCom managing director Bernhard Frohwitter in a statement. “The recent settlement between Nokia and Apple strongly shows that Nokia – rightfully – expects competitors to respect Nokia’s intellectual property, and that is exactly what we expect from Nokia for the Bosch inventions that IPCom owns.”

At stake is a patent that allows the prioritisation of emergency calls on mobile networks, acquired by IPCom from Bosch in 2007.

In January 2010 the High Court found that the patent was not valid, but IPCom amended it to reduce its scope, and the court has now ruled that the ameded patent is valid, and is infringed by unspecified Nokia devices.

IPCom said its patent is a mandatory part of the UMTS standard, meaning a wide range of devices would be subject to royalty payments, but Nokia said this interpretation reflects a “severe misunderstanding” of the High Court judge’s decision.

Nokia said UK and German operators have confirmed that they have never implemented features using the patent in question.

The handset maker also argued that only older software versions used in discontinued products were found to have infringed the patent.

“As our current products do not infringe the amended patent, there can be no injunction against them and we can continue selling those products,” Nokia said in a statement.

Apple victory

Nokia earlier this week resolved its own two-year legal dispute with Apple involving more than 40 smartphone patents, in a settlement that will see Apple make a one-off payment to Nokia and agree to pay royalties going forward.

Nokia, which has long held the position as the largest maker of mobile phones, has seen its position crumble in the face of competition from smartphones such as the iPhone and those based on Google’s Android platform. In the first quarter Apple replaced Nokia as the company with the top global mobile phone revenues.

In recent months the company has moved to more aggressively defend its patent portfolio and in 2009 began a series of lawsuits in Germany, England and the US over technologies related to smartphone user interface, power management, antenna and camera.