Wifi Revolution

The fight over patents between Nokia and Qualcomm (News - Alert) took a bitter turn on Friday as Nokia asked the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to bar the import of some Qualcomm Inc. chipsets to the United States, Reuters reported.

 

Nokia (News - Alert) makes two out of every three mobile phones sold in the world and Qualcomm is a leading chip maker. Nokia alleges that Qualcomm chipsets infringe upon five of the patents which Nokia holds. According to Nokia, the patents in question improve the performance of wireless devices and lowers manufacturing costs. The company says it also increases the battery life.

 

Nokia claims that these technologies are important to Nokia's success as they allow its products to have competitive advantages over its competitors

 

The dispute between the two companies has been centered on a cross-licensing deal over technology patents, which expired on April 9 this year. Nokia uses Qualcomm patents for high-speed 3G wireless technology and alleges that Qualcomm's chips business uses many of the Nokia-patented technologies.

 

According to analysts, the cross-licensing deal was not renewed since Nokia wanted to reduce the costs of the deal as it feels that its patent portfolio has improved radically in the last 15 years.

 

On its side, Qualcomm has been engaged in various fights over patent issues with its major rivals like Broadcom (News - Alert) Corp. The company suffered a setback in this case as the court banned imports of new advanced phones using chips which it said infringed on Broadcom patents.

 

Analysts in the industry are watching the dispute between the two companies with great interest. The outcome of the dispute between the two giants of the industry may well decide the course of 3G technologies.

 

 

 

 

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