Nokia files suits against HTC, RIM and ViewSonic

Nokia has alleged that HTC, RIM and ViewSonic have infringed on 45 Nokia patents in lawsuits filed in the US and Germany.

Nokia alleged on Wednesday that the companies have variously infringed on patents covering dual function antennas, power management and multimode radios, application stores, multitasking, navigation, conversational message display, dynamic menus, data encryption and retrieval of email attachments on a mobile device.

"Nokia is a leader in many technologies needed for great mobile products," said Louise Pentland, chief legal officer at Nokia, in a statement. "Though we'd prefer to avoid litigation, Nokia had to file these actions to end the unauthorised use of our proprietary innovations and technologies, which have not been widely licensed."

Nokia sued HTC and RIM in the regional court in Dusseldorf, and has taken all three companies to regional courts in Mannheim and Munich, the company said on Wednesday. Nokia also made a complaint to the US International Trade Commission (ITC) against HTC, and launched suits against HTC and ViewSonic in the Federal District Court of Delaware.

Florian Mueller of the FOSS Patents blog published a list of the patents under contention on Wednesday. Mueller said that Nokia had successfully wrought an agreement with Apple, and had defended itself in Germany against IPCom.