Nokia has filed legal claims in the USA and Germany alleging that products from HTC, RIM and Viewsonic infringe a number of its patents. The legal action includes a complaint to the US International Trade Commission against HTC, patent cases against HTC and Viewsonic in the USA, and court cases against all three companies in Germany.
The 45 patents cover a number of hardware capabilities and software functions, from dual-function antennas and power management to data encryption and email attachments.
Louise Pentland, chief legal officer at Nokia, said “Nokia is a leader in many technologies needed for great mobile products. We have already licensed our standards essential patents to more than 40 companies. Though we’d prefer to avoid litigation, Nokia had to file these actions to end the unauthorized use of our proprietary innovations and technologies, which have not been widely licensed. We’d rather that other companies respect our intellectual property and compete using their own innovations, but as these actions show, we will not tolerate the unauthorized use of our inventions.”