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Wireless technology company Qualcomm Inc. has filed a lawsuit against mobile giant Nokia accusing it of infringing a dozen patents related to the world's most widespread cell phone standard.

Qualcomm said on Monday it wanted Nokia to stop selling or producing products in the United States designed for GSM mobile phone networks and that it was demanding financial damages from the Finnish mobile firm.

The suit comes just days after Nokia, the world's No. 1 mobile phone maker, and five other high technology companies complained to the European Commission about Qualcomm's market practices, accusing it of stifling competition in the third-generation mobile phone chip market.

A Nokia spokeswoman said the company had no immediate comment on the Qualcomm lawsuit, which was filed in San Diego Federal Court on November 4.

Qualcomm dominates the market for technology and chips for the CDMA mobile phone technology it has invented. It said Nokia has used some of Qualcomm's CDMA technology to improve GSM networks so that they too could achieve faster speeds for data services such as video calls and Internet downloads.

GSM, short for Global System for Mobile Communications, has become the dominant mobile phone standard used in around two out of every three handsets in the world. The CDMA standard is mostly used in the Americas and parts of Asia.

Qualcomm said Nokia is infringing its patents by making or selling products in the United States that comply with GSM standards.

It said the lawsuit affected 11 Qualcomm patents and one owned by its wholly owned subsidiary, SnapTrack Inc.

Nokia and other companies, including Ericsson and Texas Instruments, complained to the European Commission late last month about Qualcomm.

They said Qualcomm offered preferential terms on royalties of technology patents to manufacturers who also bought its chipsets -- the hardware inside a mobile phone -- and stifled competition. The wireless technology company rejected the accusations.

All mobile phone chip and handset makers need Qualcomm's CDMA technology for the third-generation successor of GSM, which is called Wideband-CDMA and UMTS.

Nokia, Ericsson and others say they have contributed significantly to the WCDMA standard and also expect royalties, which may be hard if Qualcomm sticks to its licensing terms, which Nokia said are "not fair and reasonable."

Merrill Lynch analysts cut Qualcomm to "neutral" from "buy" after Nokia, Ericsson and others filed their complaint.

Nokia has a rocky relationship with Qualcomm. It struggled for years to get a market share in the CDMA mobile phone market equal to its share in GSM by using its own CDMA-designed chips rather than Qualcomm's, but has so far failed. Virtually all its rivals in the CDMA market use Qualcomm chips.

Copyright Reuters
http://go.reuters.co.uk/newsA[....]echnologyNews&storyID=10182759
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Posted: 2005-11-08 14:50:16
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Damn, what's up with Quallcomm? Wasn't Quallcomm the same company that lobbied for the CDMA system in Iraq after the American invasion in 2003 even though Iraq's neighbours used GSM.
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Posted: 2005-11-08 15:34:57
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QC seems to be throwing their weight around lately...
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Posted: 2005-11-14 01:24:48
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what do you expect, the US is going to scare every other country from competing.

I mean, are they basically saying they want them to stop selling any GSM related product?
Did they INVENT GSM?
*sighs*

As for the Iraq issue, even if CDMA 'IS' accepted in Iraq, it doesn't matter, a GSM carrier will come anyway.
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Posted: 2005-11-14 01:49:59
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GSM was selected for Iraq.
CDMA failed miserably.

As to this Qualcomm thing, it's just to give some publicity to Qualcomm... Nothing else. Just read their press release.
You can also check Nokia's reply on Nokia website
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Posted: 2005-11-14 11:04:25
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