Nokia seeks Blackberry sales bans after patent dispute

Nokia has asked courts in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada to block sales of rival Blackberry smartphones.

It follows a patent dispute between the Finnish company and Blackberry’s parent, Research In Motion.

According to a British Broadcasting Corporation report, Nokia says an earlier ruling means RIM is not allowed to produce devices that offer a common type of wi-fi connectivity until it agrees to pay licence fees.

RIM said it would respond to Nokia “in due course.”

“Research In Motion has worked hard to develop its leading-edge Blackberry technology and has built an industry-leading intellectual property portfolio of its own,” it said in a statement – a possible signal that it might counter sue.

The clash is the latest in a series of legal distractions for the Canadian company at a time it is preparing to launch an operating system that could determine its survival.

Nokia’s action comes two months after an arbitration ruling by the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce in Sweden.

The organisation had been asked to act as an arbitrator in a dispute over RIM’s use of handsets and tablets featuring wireless local area network  connections to the internet. All of RIM’s current products use it.

Nokia says more than 40 companies license its mobile-phone patents

RIM had argued that an earlier licensing deal with Nokia meant it should not have to pay a separate fee for the technologies. However, the tribunal disagreed.

After news of Nokia’s latest action was revealed by Computerworld magazine, RIM’s shares fell more than 10 per cent in after-hours trading.

They later recovered the lost ground when the Nasdaq stock market re-opened.

When contacted by the BBC, Nokia confirmed it had taken action “with the aim of ending RIM’s breach of contract,” adding it would also continue to pursue a separate case against RIM in Germany involving antenna, email and navigation technologies.

Nokia noted it had licensed its intellectual property rights to more than 40 other companies. The revenue from such deals helps justify its current $11.8bn (£7.4bn) market valuation.

RIM is also fighting several other patent lawsuits at this time.

They include a dispute with Washington-based patent portfolio owner SoftVault Systems, which alleges RIM has infringed its anti-piracy DRM (digital rights management) technologies

SOURCE: PUNCH

Nokia Wins RIM In Court; Asks RIM To Pay Royalties Or Stop Making Blackberries With Wi-Fi

Nokia has won a lawsuit over RIM in Sweden, with the result being that the Canadian phone company must either pay a license fee for all devices that uses Nokia’s WLAN technology, or stop making them.

The arbitrator ruled that the company cannot manufacture or sell products with WLAN standard, also known as Wi-Fi, unless it pays Nokia royalties. Nokia has in turn filed cases in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom to further block BlackBerry sales until RIM pays up.

Considering that most of RIM’s BlackBerry phones use the 802.11 wireless LAN standard, a block on these devices would devastate an already falling company. BlackBerry is losing market share at increasing speed and trying to launch its new BB10 platform in an iOS- and Android-dominated market. And now that there’s also the nascent Windows Phone, which Nokia champions, to compete with, any impediment to sales will significantly hurt RIM.