Nokia has announced the filing of patent counter assertions against Qualcomm in the Eastern District of Texas Court. The filing relates to Qualcomm’s ‘unauthorised’ use of six Nokia implementation patents in its MediaFLO and BREW businesses. Qualcomm has in previous litigation sought injunctions against Nokia and Nokia is now seeking both damages and injunctive relief.
“Nokia has a strong history of innovation in IP broadcast television and mobile download environments predating Qualcomm’s activities,” said Tero Ojanperä, chief technology officer, Nokia. “This is another example where Qualcomm has effectively copied Nokia’s innovations. We believe that, for MediaFLO to evolve and for BREW to remain viable, Qualcomm needs access to these and many other patented Nokia inventions.”
Nokia claims it patents are at the core of MediaFLO and BREW technologies, for example in ensuring the broadcast quality of service within MediaFLO and in enabling the download of applications with BREW. Nokia has also recently declared another set of patents to the Telecommunication Industry Association (TIA) as essential for the FLO air interface used in MediaFLO.
Nokia’s patent counter assertions are part of its response to the Qualcomm lawsuit filed in the Eastern District of Texas, on April 2, 2007. In that lawsuit Qualcomm’s three patents-in-suit allegedly involve certain types of mobile software download and execution environments. Nokia is confident that the Qualcomm patents are invalid, for example, based on the alleged inventions having been patented or published by other companies, including Nokia, before Qualcomm. In addition, Nokia believes its products do not infringe any of the patents.
