Apple strikes back in Nokia infringement issue

Nokia last week sued Apple for patent infringement, claiming that the company had refused to license its patents. As a result, the Cupertino-giant sued several patent owners saying that they were conspiring with Nokia.

Now a new report suggests that Apple has pulled all Withings products from its online store. (Withings makes Wi-Fi scales and other digital health/fitness gears). Users can notice this themselves as while the Google search will showcase a listing on Apple’s web store for Withings products but clicking on the link leads to an error message on the website.

This isn’t the first time Apple and Nokia have been involved in a dispute over patents. The two companies sued each other in 2009 but later struck a deal in 2011 wherein Apple agreed to license Nokia’s patents. However, according to Nokia, Apple has refused to take a new license this time.

Apple responded by saying that Nokia was acting like a patent troll and said it was “defending inventors everywhere” by standing up to the company.

“We respect intellectual property and we’ve always been willing to pay a fair price to secure the rights of patents covering technology in our products.” Apple said in a statement to Recode. “Unfortunately, Nokia has refused to license their patents on a fair basis and is now using the tactics of a patent troll to attempt to extort money from Apple by applying a royalty rate to Apple’s own inventions they had nothing to do with.”