Nokia is asking a federal judge to throw out Apple's antitrust claims against it, charging that they are a distraction from the real matter of dispute between the two companies--whether Apple is infringing on Nokia's patents.
The dispute between the competing firms, sparked in October, has grown increasingly bitter, and in federal court papers filed in Delaware late last week, Nokia said Apple is engaging in "legal alchemy" by claiming that Nokia is trying to monopolize the handset industry. The companies each have filed patent-infringement claims against each other, and have also taken their case to the U.S. International Trade Commission.
"These non-patent counterclaims are designed to divert attention away from free-riding off of Nokia's intellectual property, a practice Apple evidently believes should only be of paramount concern when it is the alleged victim," Nokia said in its filing.
For its part, Apple has claimed that Nokia is trying to force it to give up proprietary technology for the iPhone. Apple has also accused Nokia of concealing the extent of its patent holdings and then charging large royalties for technologies such as WiFi transmission. Nokia said that Apple is using "revisionist history, misleading characterizations, unsupported allegations and flawed and contradictory legal theories to turn these fruitless negotiations into a multi-count federal lawsuit."
An Apple spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
For more:
- see this Bloomberg article
- see this Computerworld article
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