Apple hits back against Nokia in patent row

Apple accused Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, of infringing the patents held by the Cupertino, California company without specifying which technologies or appliances had been targeted.

"Other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours," Apple vice president Bruce Sewell said in a brief statement.

The move came after Nokia in October accused its US rival of infringing 10 Nokia mobile phone technology patents with the iPhone.

According to Nokia, the patents cover "wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption and are infringed by all Apple iPhone models shipped since the iPhone was introduced in 2007."

Ilkka Rahnasto, deputy head of Nokia's legal department, accused Apple at the time of "attempting to get a free ride on the back of Nokia's innovation."

Nokia filed the complaint against Apple with a federal court in the eastern state of Delaware.

Apple did not say where it had countersued Nokia and did not immediately reply to a query from AFP about the venue.

Nokia posted its first quarterly loss in a decade in October amid falling sales. Analysts said the poor results were partly due to the growing popularity of the iPhone and Research in Motion's Blackberry over Nokia models.

Apple reported record quarterly sales of 7.4 million iPhones in October.

Source: AFP

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