Washington: Apple Incorporated, maker of the iPhone, accused Nokia in court documents of trying to monopolise the market in wireless technology.
Nokia purposefully withheld information on its patent holdings while helping to establish an industry standard and then demanded "unreasonable" royalties, Apple said in a federal court filing Friday in Wilmington, Delaware. The claim is part of a broader counterattack to patent-infringement claims made by Nokia.
"Nokia deliberately and deceptively failed to disclose in a timely manner" its intellectual property rights, Apple said in the filing.
"This course of misconduct enabled Nokia to obtain monopoly powers" in each of five areas "to obtain excessive royalties".
The legal battle between the two began in October, when Nokia, the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, filed a lawsuit accusing Apple of infringing 10 patents and demanding back royalties on millions of iPhones sold since the device's introduction in 2007.
Each company has since accused the other of infringing an increasing number of patents.
Some of the allegations in today's filing, including counterclaims of patent infringement, were disclosed in December in Apple's initial response to Nokia's suit.
Industry standards
The filing adds the antitrust claim and allegations that Nokia misled five different groups establishing industry standards to ensure its patented inventions were included in the standards for Wi-Fi and wireless transmissions, among other technologies.
Nokia, based in Espoo, Finland, is the world's biggest mobile-phone maker. In the fast-growing market for smartphones, it has lost market share to Apple and Research In Motion Limited, maker of the BlackBerry.
"Having suffered losses in the marketplace, Nokia has resorted to demanding exorbitant royalties from Apple for patents that Nokia claims are essential to various compatibility standards," Apple said in its filing.
Nokia also is trying to force Apple to license its proprietary iPhone technology, the Cupertino, California-based computer company said in the filing.
Apple said in the filing that it doesn't want to cross-license any technology "that would enable Nokia to try to develop products with features now unique to the iPhone".
The companies also have filed complaints with the US International Trade Commission in Washington, seeking to block imports of the other company's smartphones, which are assembled overseas.
Nokia contends at least some of its patents cover inventions that are essential to comply with the various industry standards. Apple's position is that, if the patents are essential, then Nokia is contractually bound to license them on "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" terms.
