Qualcomm sues Nokia over 12 patents
By Chris Nuttall in San Francisco and Mark Odell in London
Published: November 7 2005 17:56 | Last updated: November 7 2005 17:56
 A patent war involving leading mobile phone and chip makers intensified on Monday, with Qualcomm announcing it was suing Nokia for infringement of a dozen of its patents.
The move by the US mobile chip maker appeared to be a response to last month抯 complaints to the European Commission by Nokia and five other companies that Qualcomm was being anti-competitive in refusing to license its patents to the industry on 揻air, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.?Qualcomm said it filed suit on Friday in a federal court in San Diego alleging infringement of 11 of its patents and one owned by its subsidiary SnapTrack.
揥e have been discussing a number of issues with Nokia for some time, including the fact that we have essential GSM patents for which Nokia is not licensed,?said Louis Lupin, Qualcomm general counsel.
揢ntil recently, we had been led to believe that these issues might be resolved co-operatively and amicably,?he added.
Analysts at Deutsche Bank said in a note that Qualcomm was 損laying hardball.?揟his appears to be an aggressive counter to Nokia抯 complaint . . . we believe today抯 suit . . . signals [Qualcomm抯] view that they have a strong case in these matters,?they said.
Nokia said it had not yet seen the full complaint so could not comment on its 搒ubstantive aspects? But it said it was 揹isappointed?with Qualcomm抯 decision to resort to legal action, claiming that the US company had not even attempted to hold any licensing negotiations.
換ualcomm has a duty to license those patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. Qualcomm has not provided Nokia with any proposed terms for a licence in compliance with its obligations,?it said.
Analysts believe that intellectual property rights disputes in the mobile phone arena are on the rise as falling prices for the equipment increasingly put margins under pressure.
揂ll this does is underline the importance of intellectual property in this business,?said Ben Wood, a mobile handset analyst at Gartner.
The suit refers to patent infringement through the use of Qualcomm抯 Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology. | 
