Apple is now going head-to-head with Nokia, the Finnish mobile phone giant. The Cupertino California-based company accused Nokia of patent infringement and the stakes are very high. The losing party would lose its rights to sell their products in US and would have to seek license from the other party.
Apple is now hiring lawyers who are highly experienced in handling intellectual properly related cases. This legal tussle between these two companies goes back in 2009. It was Nokia who attacked first. In October 2009, Nokia filed ITC complaint. That same year and also in the beginning of 2010, Nokia sued Apple over copyright infringement. Nokia claimed that Apple is using its wireless technologies in most of its products. In December 2009, Apple countersued Nokia saying it infringed 13 of its patents.
Apple hired Robert Kruka of Kirkland & Ellish. In 2005, Krupka worked on the case of Apple vs Creative Technology Ltd. where Apple paid $100 million in settlement.
William Lee is another lawyer who works for WilmerHale in Boston. He represented Broadcom Corp. in the Broadcom vs. Qualcomm Inc. case that continued for four years and ended in 2009 with Qualcomm paying $891million in settlement. The case ran for four years.
Then there is Matt Powers of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. He represented Merck & Co. and defended the company’s biggest product, an asthma drug called Singulair.
Apple also hired an in-house attorney, Noreen Krall, to handle its IP related matter. Krall served as chief IP counsel for Sun Microsystems Inc. He is also a staff attorney at IBM.
As per Apple Insider’s latest report, staff of the U.S. International Trade Commission said that Apple’s evidence are not strong enough to establish that Nokia infringed any patent but this would not affect the outcome of the case. The ITC trail will start this week in Washington.
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