Nokia, whining again

Kevin O'Brien has an article in The New York Times about the latest salvo in the Nokia v. Apple war:

In the latest salvo of a protracted legal battle, Nokia sued Apple in Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands, alleging that the U.S. technology company used thirteen of its patents, including a basic touch-screen maneuver, without its permission. The lawsuits filed by Nokia are the most recent demands for royalty payments from its archrival Apple, the computer and device maker based in Cupertino, California, which entered the mobile phone business in 2007 with the iPhone, a device that redefined the smartphone.
“The Nokia inventions protected by these patents include several which enable compelling user experiences,” said Paul Melin, a Nokia vice president in charge of intellectual property. Two of the patents that Nokia is claiming are the familiar finger “wiping gesture” used to navigate content on a cellphone touch screen, and the technology that enables access to the real-time services of an applications store. Mr. Melin said Nokia had filed patents protecting both technologies more than ten years ago. Nokia said it sued Apple in the High Court in London, district courts in Düsseldorf and Mannheim, Germany, and district court in The Hague. The suits claim that Apple is improperly using Nokia technologies in the iPhone, iPad, and iPod devices.
An Apple spokesman in Europe, Alan Hely, did not immediately respond to email and phone messages requesting comment on the Nokia lawsuits
The iPhone’s success over the past three years has come at the expense of Nokia, which still has the largest share of the global cellphone market, but has struggled to develop a smartphone lineup that can compete for consumer attention and slow the iPhone juggernaut.
In October of 2009, Nokia sued Apple in U.S. District Court in Delaware and Wisconsin, and filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission. Last December, Apple countersued, saying the Finnish company had misappropriated thirteen Apple technologies.
Peter Chrocziel, an intellectual property lawyer at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Munich, said Nokia was using a common strategy by filing the claims in countries that bring potential gains for litigants.
Germany’s streamlined legal process means intellectual property claims are generally resolved faster than in the United States, usually within twelve to eighteen months, Mr. Chrocziel said.
The Dutch courts have been known to issue cross-border injunctions in IP cases, which would broaden the effect of the court’s decision. In Britain, the court will allow Nokia to use legal discovery, a process of questioning Apple that is not available on the European Continent, which could unearth useful information.
“In the United States, most intellectual property claims never reach court and are settled in advance,” Mr. Chrocziel said. “But in Europe, it is the opposite.” The latest series of lawsuits, Mr. Chrocziel said, is part of a broader pattern of rising litigiousness in the mobile phone industry, caused by the increasing technological complexity of the devices and a more fierce business environment among handset makers. A smartphone represents 1,000 or more individual patents, Mr. Chrocziel said. “That means a company, if it chooses, can usually find one or more patents in its portfolio that could be used to cause a competitor trouble,” he said.

Rico says if all you've got is kludgy technology, you gotta sue somebody...