with the Finnish phone company reportedly even accusing the iPhone maker of misusing the standardization process.
In late March of 2012, Nokia threatened to violate the principles of standards-based patents, i.e. "misusing the standardization process", claiming that the Apple nano-SIM proposal did not meet the guidelines for the next-generation SIM standard, and hence Nokia would refuse to license its essential patents that relate to the Apple SIM format.
Nokia made the following statement.
It has become clear that ETSI's current work on the 4FF standard is in conflict with ETSI's agreed rules, risking the adoption of a proposal which does not meet ETSI's technical requirements and which would be inferior for consumers and the mobile industry, unnecessarily increasing the cost of mobile devices.
"We believe that Apple is mis-using the standardization process, seeking to impose its own proprietary solution on the industry and using ETSI merely to rubber stamp its proposal, rather than following established principles and practices," said Henry Tirri, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Nokia. "We urge ETSI members to resist this behaviour, which is not in the best interests of the industry or, more importantly, of consumers."
Nokia has actively contributed to telecommunications standardization for more than two decades. We believe that the overriding objective any standardization activity must be to collaboratively select the best technological solution, independent of individual commercial interests. It is imperative that the integrity of ETSI's standardization process should be upheld, with pre-agreed requirements and selection criteria used to ensure fair selection of the best technology. The proposal from Nokia, RIM and Motorola meets all of ETSI's pre-agreed requirements and more of its selection criteria and so should be selected on its technical merits.
Nokia's objections to Apple's proposal have never been related to intellectual property. However, as a result of the issues with the 4FF standardization work, Nokia is not willing to contribute its own IPR to the standard, if the Apple proposal is selected in violation of ETSI's rules. Nokia holds more than 50 patent families covering SIM related technologies that we believe may be essential to Apple's proposal. We have informed ETSI that, if Apple's proposal is selected, then Nokia will not license its relevant patents to that standard.
This decision has no impact on Nokia's existing commitments to license its standard essential patents under FRAND terms to earlier adopted ETSI standards.
In other words, Nokia claims they own the "walled-garden" and that anyone that will not play by their rules.... will get BANNED, even standards setting bodies.
Sounds somewhat familiar to the actions of some SI members when someone does not conform to their ever-changing protocol.
Oh! How times have changed.
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