Apple Says Nokia Wanted Cross-License for Apple iPhone Patents

Engadget’s Nilay Patel is reading Apple’s filing, and I think he’s found the heart of the disagreement:

Apple says Nokia’s patents aren’t actually essential to GSM / UMTS, denies infringing them, and says they’re invalid and / or unenforceable anyway. Apple also says Nokia wanted unreasonable license terms for the patents, including a cross-license for Apple’s various iPhone device patents as part of any deal, which Apple clearly wasn’t willing to do.

The big question about this dispute all along has been why Apple didn’t just license Nokia’s GSM/UMTS patents. Supposedly every other GSM phone maker (or at least all the other major ones) does, and they’re relatively cheap. The answer is that Nokia didn’t just want licensing fees from Apple: they wanted cross-license rights to Apple’s own iPhone patents.

★ Friday, 11 December 2009