Qualcomm sues Nokia
By Ed Sperling, Editor in Chief -- EDN, April 3, 2007
Communications chip powerhouse Qualcomm filed suit against Nokia, claiming the cell phone giant infringed on three patents involving “handshaking” between wireless devices and a server, interactive screens and metadata filtering.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, involves three patents, all of which were awarded last year. Qualcomm is seeking an injunction, damages and punitive damages.
Relations between the two companies have been stormy in the past couple years. At times, Qualcomm and Nokia have been allies, particularly involving 3G technologies. At other times, they have marshaled their legal forces against each other.
The new dispute involves a different set of technologies. One patent focuses on the screen technology used to download or update cell phones, which the patent says increasingly behave as small computers. As such, they are able to download applications, and the user must acknowledge the end user agreement for the download. Qualcomm developed the interactive mechanism to allow that to occur.
It also has patented the handoff of information between the server and the cellular handset—the so-called handshake—and the ability to selectively acquire data using metadata tagging.
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