Nokia’s Patent Could Be A Big Threat For Google 7-Inches Nexus Tablet

Indeed, it’s not an ideal time for Google and its Partners in terms of ‘intellectual property right’. After Apple, now Nokia has decided to take up Google and it has planned to sue Nexus 7 Tablet into the court. It’s almost one week of the launch of the device and Nokia has claimed that the device infringes some of its patents.

The news was confirmed just after the day Apple won the case to ban Samsung Galaxy Nexus Smartphone in the U.S.. In this way, Apple has managed to stalemate the sales of  Samsung’s two major products—Galaxy 10.1 Tab and Galaxy Nexus—across the country last week. However, Nokia has not yet filled any injunction against Google or Asus (Nexus Tablet manufacturer) in the court, but it has threatened both (Google and Asus) to pay appropriate licensing fee.

A Nokia spokesperson said, “Nokia has more than 40 licensees, mainly for its standards essential patent portfolio, including most of the mobile device manufacturers. Neither Google nor Asus is licensed under our patent portfolio. Companies who are not yet licensed under our standard essential patents should simply approach us and sign up for a license.”

However, it’s still unclear that which of the Nokia’s patent Google’s 7-inches Nexus Tablet is infringing. It’s expected that the device supersedes patent related to IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi standard because the device does not have cellular data option.

Nokia is considered as a big giant for developing GSM, GPRS, EDGE, W-CDMA, HSPA, LTE and Wi-Fi technologies, which are often being used in the mobile handsets. Especially during nineties, it played a crucial role in developing GPRS and EDGE standards, however, we can’t ignore its participation in the brand new LTE standard.

Despite of these, Nokia has also a broad patents in some diversified areas including email software, power consumption and antenna technology. The Finnish handset manufacturer introduced communicator device, which offered email support and full Qwerty keyboard in 1996.

Apple bought a concept of full-fledged touchscreen with its iPhone in 2007 and later it was considered as industrial standard for Smartphone. Nokia was unwillingly forced to deal with Apple for touchscreen manipulation patents. Despite of Apple’s software patent strength, it’s estimated that Apple will have to pay at least $3 to $6 billion licensing fees over the next half a decade to Nokia.

Nokia has also several cross licensing deals with Motorola and these deals do not consider to be passed to some other vendors, even after Google acquired Motorola. Really, it’s tough for Asus, which has endeavored to create offsets combining Wi-Fi, antenna engineering patent and power consumption.

Currently, Nokia is facing financial crisis and it has decided to cut 10,000 jobs and has also planned to sell its luxurious mobile phone division to a private equity firm. However, using patent right, it could charge licensing fee from variants vendors.