U.K. judge rules against Nokia in patent infringement case

Even though it apparently is about to reveal an amazing new Windows Phone 7 handset as we reported today, for the time being at least, life has been mostly hard for Nokia. And to add insult to injury, a U.K. judge has ruled thattwo phonesproduced by the Finnish manufacturer had infringed upon a patent held by German firm IPCom. According to BusinessWeek, the patent dealt with the technology used to connect a handset to a network. The same case is being heard in courts in the U.S., Germany, Japan and Italy.

IPC acquired the patents in 2007 from Robert Bosch. The world's number one automotive supplier, Bosch could not work out a deal 4 years ago to license the technology to Nokia and sold the patent to IPCom. Judge Christopher Floyd sitting in the High Court of London also ruled that a third Nokia phone did not violate the patent. Nokia said it would appeal part of the judgment and the company claims that its current lineup does not violate the patents in question although IPCom says that the two phones that infringed upon the patents are still sold by Nokia.

In a strange twist of events, a couple of days ago Nokia settled a similar case with Apple. The Cupertino based firm will make a one time payment to Nokia and the latter will also receive royalty payments.

source: BusinessWeek via electronista