Nokia fires first salvo in patent legal battle

Nokia Corporation has filed patent infringement complaints against Vitelcom for alleged abuse of its intellectual property covering GSM and GPRS technologies.

The Finnish mobile giant said that the European legal battle aims to force injunctions against the continued sale and marketing of Vitelcom's mobile phone products covered by the patents in suit and/or monetary damages.

"Nokia has invested considerable time, energy and resources in its own R&D, which has yielded many significant inventions and allowed Nokia to build one of the industry's largest portfolios of technology patents," said Nokia vice president Ilkka Rahnasto.

He added that Vitelcom "should play by the rules" and license Nokia's intellectual property.

"In this situation, it has become necessary to take the dispute to the courts," said Rahnasto. "We believe Vitelcom is using Nokia patented technologies without authority from, or compensation to, Nokia."

Nokia is one of the world's largest patent owners for GSM and GPRS technologies, with a particularly strong portfolio covering improved voice quality, mobile data and usability of mobile phone technologies.