(16 June 2007 2:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Mobile phone major Nokia has filed patent counter assertions against Qualcomm in a Texas Court.

The filing relates to Qualcomm's unauthorised use of six Nokia implementation patents in its MediaFlo and Brew businesses.

Qualcomm has in previous litigation sought injunctions against Nokia and therefore in this case Nokia is seeking both damages and injunctive relief.

Nokia CTO Tero Ojanpera says, "Nokia has a strong history of innovation in IP broadcast television and mobile download environments predating Qualcomm's activities. This is another example where Qualcomm has effectively copied Nokia's innovations.

"We believe that, for MediaFlo to evolve and for Brew to remain viable, Qualcomm needs access to these and many other patented Nokia inventions."

Nokia states that its patents are at the core of MediaFlo and Brew technologies, for example in ensuring the broadcast quality of service within MediaFlo and in enabling the download of applications with Brew. Nokia has also recently declared another set of patents to the Telecommunication Industry Association (TIA) as essential for the Flo air interface used in MediaFlo.

Over the past two years, Qualcomm has filed 11 lawsuits against Nokia, according to a Nokia spokeswoman.

The initial Qualcomm lawsuit filed in Texas deals with three patents related to the downloading of applications and other digital content over GPRS or EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) networks, two technologies for speeding the transmission of packet data in GSM networks.

Nokia contends that Qualcomm's patents are invalid and, in addition, has asked the Texas court to stop Qualcomm from using six Nokia implementation patents used in Qualcomm's MediaFlow and Brew technologies.

Media reports state that the Nokia move seems aimed at undermining operator support for two technologies designed to turn Qualcomm into a strong mobile content distributer. MediaFlo enables operators to pipe television programming to mobile handsets. Brew is a distribution platform for things like mobile video, games and music.