A company backed by hedge fund and private equity company Fortress Investment Group has filed a lawsuit against the world's top cell phone maker, Nokia, for alleged patent infringement.
Why am I calling this good news, since my position on intellectual monopolies has been made fairly plain on these pages? Well, because of this:
IP-Com decided to sue Nokia after the mobile-phone maker refused to pay 12 billion euros ($17.77 billion), which IP-Com had demanded from Nokia for using the patents for mobile communications technology, Schoeller said.
Yeah, 12 billion euros: that's a reasonable demand, isn't it? Maybe reasonable enough to dun into Nokia's corporate brain that patents really aren't a good idea, since in the past it has sometimes aligned itself with those wanting *more* software patents in Europe. Maybe reasonable enough that it's even prepared to fight the idea now.
Heh. That exactly was my reaction as well when I wrote about it. 10 times worse than Alcatel-Lucent (versus Microsoft).
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