Nokia files Lawsuits against HTC, RIM and Viewsonic

It’s a sad sign of the times for Nokia when their main source of profit comes through suing other companies rather than the sales of their own mobile phones. In the wake of poor sales figures for Q1 2012, and the news that Samsung have now overtaken them for global handset sales, the Finnish phone giant is in a beleaguered state.

Thankfully, Nokia’s history of innovation in mobile technology means that they have, over the years, laid out a minefield of patents for other companies to dismember themselves on.

Now Nokia have called on them, filing 11 lawsuits against HTC, RIM and Viewsonic. The patents revolve around ‘proprietary innovations’ in hardware such as power management and dual function antennas. In software, they are suing over other companies’ use of app stores, navigation, dynamic menus and data encryption.

With the exception of Apple and Samsung, most of the major phone manufacturers have fallen on tough times. While Nokia’s Q1 financial outlooks have been the worst of the lot, both RIM and HTC have also had a rough quarter, seeing substantial drops in profits.

[Source: TechCrunch]