Nokia files lawsuit against Apple re-igniting patent wars

In a revival of old patents wars, Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent have filed lawsuit against Apple Inc for violating 32 technology patents in Germany and the US that cover patents for displays, user interfaces, software, antennas, chipsets and video coding.

"Since agreeing a license covering some patents from the Nokia Technologies portfolio in 2011, Apple has declined subsequent offers made by Nokia to license other of its patented inventions which are used by many of Apple's products," Nokia said in a statement.

The legal action follows antitrust lawsuit by Apple against Acacia Research Corp and Conversant Intellectual Property Management Inc, accusing them of colluding with Nokia to extract and extort exorbitant revenues unfairly from Apple.

Nokia reached a deal with "each of its PAE co-conspirators" to separately enforce a diffused patent portfolio, "to maximize the aggregate royalties that can be extracted from product companies," Apple lawyers allege. "Nokia and those PAEs have thereby increased market power and created or enhanced monopoly power associated with those patents."

The brewing war reminds of the patent battles the two companies fought between 2009 and 2011. Back then, the two companies were also engaged in litigation that spanned the globe. All that was put to rest with a settlement in 2011, which analysts estimated at the time may have been worth hundreds of millions of euros to Nokia.

Despite those payments, Nokia said in a statement today that Apple refused to license "other of its patented inventions which are used by many of Apple's products."

Nokia sold its handset division to Microsoft in 2014 but kept the patent portfolio intact with itself. It has continued to boost its IP holdings with the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent this year.