Patents: Nokia Vs Google, WiFi Tethering and WebM/WP8 codecs

A couple of legal/patent related Nokia stories for you guys to gloss over. I don’t know very much about the patent system but the gist I’m getting is that firstly, it appears Nokia has a patent on WiFi Tethering (or at least key aspects). Secondly, more google-free riding as it tries to get some Nokia patents for its WebM patents licence free. Or is it?

1) from Muerte

Nokia maybe achieving a huge win over its wlan-tetheringpatent:

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/android-likely-infringes-nokia-patent.html

Nokia patented it already in the year 1995. This means, that every Android device would infringe this patent.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6LJFyVdfaSI/UUyPbdxeBJI/AAAAAAAABHo/8lS0DIvzybI/s1600/Nokia+tethering+patent+-+Figure+1.png
Source Link: http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/android-likely-infringes-nokia-patent.html

2) from Alvester

Nokia refuses royalty-free and FRAND licensing for its WebM patents

http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/24/4141258/nokia-webm-patents-frand

 

“Nokia believes that open and collaborative efforts for standardization are in the best interests of consumers, innovators and the industry as a whole. We are now witnessing one company attempting to force the adoption of its proprietary technology, which offers no advantages over existing, widely deployed standards such as H.264 and infringes Nokia’s intellectual property. As a result, we have taken the unusual step of declaring to the Internet Engineering Task Force that we are not prepared to license any Nokia patents which may be needed to implement its RFC6386 specification for VP8, or for derivative codecs.”

More on that;

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/nokia-comments-on-vp8-patent.html

Question from the first comment at TheVerge:

What’s wrong with that? Its Nokia’s patent, and why should they be subjected to be ’FRAND’d’ on Google’s request?
If Google really wants WebM to grow, they should license it. Not creating something and distributing everything for free as if no patent exist.

Category: Nokia