Chip-maker Qualcomm has filed suit against Finland's Nokia for selling GSM technology in the U.S., which Qualcomm says infringes on its CDMA patents.
Wireless communications giant Qualcomm has filed suit against Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia, claiming Nokia is infringing on eleven Qualcomm patents (plus one held by Qualcomm subsidiary SnapTrack) by selling mobile phones in the United States which comply with the GSM standard.
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RSSMy understanding from information published by Qualcomm, Nokia, and Texas Instruments is that Qualcomm believes Nokia's sales of GSM phones in the US are a violation of selected patents because:
a) Qualcomm's patents apply directly to extensions to GSM technology (GPRS and EDGE) which were originally developed for CDMA, and
b) Nokia sold phones in the U.S. using those GSM extensions.
I could be misreading the material: I'm not a telecom engineeer, and may be missing some technical background which lets me interpret it accurately.
As to balance of CDMA to GSM in the US, my understanding is that CDMA remains dominant by a wide margin. Again, not a telecom engineer!
"Qualcomm is alleging that Nokia has misappropriated Qualcomm's CDMA technology in its GSM equipment in order to add data and multimedia features to GSM phones. Qualcomm asserts that phones using GPRS and EDGE technologies evolved from GMS use innovations to which Qualcomm holds patents, and all phones using high-speed evolutions of CDMA—called Wideband CDMA (W-CDMA) and UMTS—also use Qualcomm technology."