Originally Posted by
ScottC
Who says they didn't? The vast majority of these patent wars are fought behind closed doors. Apple and Nokia have a license agreement for 100's of patents that Nokia owned and Apple "borrowed" and the terms were never revealed.
But it is clear that there is more respect between the old-timers themselves than there is between the old-timers and Apple. The established brands all understand that they own patents from decades of research in mobile communications. In my opinion, a battle over crappy patents like rounded corners or bouncing icons has no place in a court room - it is the foundational stuff that matters. Patents for inventions like GSM, encryption, CDMA, LTE, UMTS and others that took decades to develop. Companies like Nokia, Siemens, Ericsson and Alcatel all laid the groundwork for everything we use on our phones nowadays and Apple has done nothing here other than make it look pretty on the outside. It pains me to see RIM and Nokia suffer like this, considering a lot of what we take for granted today comes from them.
All very true, and made me think back. I had a Nokia as the first phone I ever used regularily on those days when I was the duty out of hours on call person from work. Sadly it was rock solid and I could hear the other end perfectly when they said could you please come in ASAP. I can then remember seeing Dad with his Blackberry (for the first time) whilst on holiday on ACK. He was getting email on it, which was something akin to magic given the land line was flakey at the best of times.
Someone recently described to me her opinion of the current batch of smartphones (from all manufacturers) as "handheld computers with a phone tacked on because they thought it might be nice to make calls occasionally." I actually laughed out loud when she said it.