Qualcomm charges Nokia with GSM patent violation

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 08 November 2005 15:57

IT Industry - Strategy

Qualcomm, and its wholly owned subsidiary SnapTrack, have filed a law suit accusing Nokia of infringing eleven of Qualcomm's patents and one patent owned by SnapTrack that, according to Qualcomm, are essential for the manufacture or use of equipment that complies with the GSM, GPRS and EDGE cellular standards.

The suit states that Nokia is infringing Qualcomm's patents by making or selling GSM products in the United States. Qualcomm is seeking an injunction to prevent the sale of these products and monetary damages.

The move follows complains filed by Nokia and a number of other major cellular industry players with the European Commission accusing Qualcomm of anti-competitive conduct in the licensing of essential patents for 3G mobile technology.

Broadcom, Ericsson, NEC, Nokia, Panasonic Mobile Communications and Texas Instruments late last month each filed individual complaints to the EC accusing Qualcomm of violating EU competition law and failing to meet the commitments it had made to international standard bodies that it would license its technology on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. They said that, without these commitments, the WCDMA 3G standard would not have been adopted.

Qualcomm claims that patents it developed originally for use in CDMA systems to achieve higher data rates, increase spectral efficiency, enhance capacity, improve resistance to interference, permit access to packet switched networks, and facilitate multimedia distribution were adopted in the evolution of GSM to GPRS and EDGE to meet increased competition from CDMA technology.

Qualcomm claims to have raised its concerns with Nokia without resolution. "We 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, and we are disappointed that this has resulted in litigation," said Louis M Lupin, senior vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm.

"Until recently, we had been led to believe that these issues might be resolved cooperatively and amicably. However, it now appears that a cooperative resolution of these issues is quite unlikely and we must move forward with the litigation in order to protect our rights and to get these issues resolved."

Nokia, however, claims that the first it knew about Qualcomm's legal action was from Qualcomm's press release and the company said it was unable to comment on the claims because it had yet to receive a copy of the complaint, and analyse the details. Further, contrary to what Qualcomm says, Nokia claims that Qualcomm "[has] yet to engage in any licensing negotiations concerning these matters."

It notes that, "with respect to the patents alleged to be essential to the GSM/GPRS/EDGE standards, Qualcomm has a duty to license those patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms," and says that "Qualcomm has not provided Nokia with any proposed terms for a license in compliance with its obligations...It is quite unusual for a company to institute litigation before discussing such terms...The timing of this lawsuit and the comments of Qualcomm's general counsel that a cooperative resolution of these issues is unlikely, when the patents have not been verified and licensing terms have not yet been offered or discussed, is completely inconsistent with the basic licensing principles to which Qualcomm is obligated."