USITC to look into Nokia’s complaint against Apple

The U.S. International Trade Commission will investigate a complaint by Nokia Technologies alleging that Apple has imported smartphones, tablet computers and other electronics that infringe upon its patents, reports Reuters.

The USITC said in a statement it hadn’t yet made any decision on the merits of the case by the Finland-based Nokia Corp unit, which is seeking a cease and desist order and a limited exclusion order. In December 2016 Nokia announced that it had today filed a number of complaints against Apple in Germany and the U.S, alleging that Apple products infringe a number of its patents.

Ilkka Rahnasto, head of Patent Business at Nokia, said that, since agreeing a license covering some patents from the Nokia Technologies portfolio in 2011, Apple declined subsequent offers made by Nokia to license other of its patented inventions which are used by many of Apple’s products. The actions were filed with the Regional Courts in Dusseldorf, Mannheim and Munich in Germany and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, with 32 patents in suit across all of the actions, covering technologies such as display, user interface, software, antenna, chipsets and video coding. Nokia is in the process of filing further actions in other jurisdictions.