UK Patent Office Approves Software Patent... Rationalizes The Decision

from the and-here-we-go... dept

The UK has held out against the idea of software patents for a while, but with Nokia pushing hard to get a patent on a piece of software related to the Symbian mobile operating system (which, ironically, Nokia has agreed to open source), last year a court ruled that the patent office in the UK had been too quick to dismiss the patent application, and an appeals court agreed. So, it should probably come as no surprise at all that the patent office has now granted the patent in question. What's amusing, though, is how it rationalizes the decision. Rather than just saying "uh, the courts said so," it claims that it allowed the patent because it's "more than just a software program," saying that the invention was a "technical contribution." Apparently, the new rules mean that as long as software makes a "technical contribution" it can be patented. But... uh... what software doesn't make a "technical contribution" of some sort?

Filed Under: patents, software patents, symbian, uk
Companies: nokia

If Criminals Are Smart Enough To Hack Old Nokia's, Can't They Keep A Secret?

from the thankfully-criminals-are-dumb dept

If you have an old Nokia 1100 phone, maybe it's time to dust it off and try selling it in Germany where hackers claim to have figured out a way to use certain Nokia phones to steal authentication codes for bank transactions. There are a few reports that these old phones (if they were made in a very specific factory, not just any old model...) are selling for ridiculous amounts -- ranging from $700 to $30,000 -- presumably because the handsets are so hard to find and are valuable to hackers prone to crime. So far, Nokia says it can't imagine any way for these old phones to be hacked for banking fraud. But not surprisingly, security vendors are quick to point out the plausibility of this type of phone hacking -- since security firms can obviously benefit from unfounded fears that encourage consumers to buy security software regardless of the actual need for it. Is it really that hard to ask a security vendor what the likelihood would be for a criminal to actually succeed in such a scam? Hopefully, the odds of actually stealing any money with these ancient phones are approaching zero -- especially now that the tools to implement the fraud are known and apparently getting quite expensive. Perhaps the real suckers in this story are the gullible hackers who are buying old phones in shady forums for prices that are well more than the phones are worth?

Filed Under: hacking, phones, security
Companies: nokia

Finland Agrees To Let Companies Spy On Workers

from the who-needs-trust-when-you-have-technology? dept

Last month, we noted the controversy in Finland, as a new law was up for debate concerning whether or not companies there could spy on employee email. Beyond the general controversy, there were rumors that Nokia, who had been caught breaking the existing law by spying on employee emails before, had supposedly threatened to leave Finland if the law wasn't changed to allow such activities. Nokia has vehemently denied this, but hasn't denied that it supported the law. So... it's probably not a huge surprise that the Finnish Parliament has approved the law.

To be honest, the details of the law aren't that extreme. It doesn't let the company even read the emails -- just record who is emailing whom. For company email, that seems perfectly reasonable. Hell, the day this law passed, RIM admitted not only does it track and record all company email, but it does the same thing for all phone calls as well. Perhaps a more important question is whether or not that's a useful way to spend company resources? The companies obviously talk about the importance of "protecting" their IP, but I once worked for a company that recorded all phone calls as well, and all it really did was make all of the employees angry, disgruntled and less interested in working hard. Having your bosses distrust you can do that...

Filed Under: employees, finland, spying
Companies: nokia, rim

Nokia, Qualcomm Move Forward With Non-Patent-Fight-Based Relationship

from the wonders-never-cease dept

Qualcomm and Nokia have been involved in a long-running series of patent disputes over chips in mobile phones. The two companies settled the bulk of their disputes last summer, with Nokia throwing a chunk of change at Qualcomm and the two making nice. This week, the two companies announced they'd work together to put Qualcomm chips in Nokia devices. Nokia, the top global handset vendor, has never used Qualcomm chips, and the work will first be focused on devices for the US market, where Nokia's market share lags far behind its share in the rest of the world. So Qualcomm gets a big new chip customer, Nokia strengthens its offerings for the US markets, and consumers benefit from increased competition. Sounds good all around, and makes you wonder why the companies resisted such an approach in favor of the patent fight for so long.

Filed Under: chips, mobile phones, patents
Companies: nokia, qualcomm

Is Nokia Demanding The Right To Spy On Its Employees?

from the or-it-will-leave-Finland? dept

There's quite a story making the rounds, suggesting that Nokia is putting significant pressure on the Finnish government, demanding that it pass a law allowing it to spy on its employees, or the company will leave Finland. Nokia is quickly denying the claim, which does seem pretty extreme. However, that doesn't mean that Nokia hasn't put political pressure on the government to pass this law. Apparently, the company has been caught multiple times illegally spying on employees, and has worked hard to get this law passed, which would legalize its actions. Despite legal experts all insisting that the law is unconstitutional, apparently the Finnish Parliament's Constitutional Law Committee has decided to move forward with it anyway -- which is what resulted in the speculation about the threat to leave Finland.

Filed Under: employees, finland, monitoring
Companies: nokia

Whaddaya Know? DRM For Nokia's 'Comes With Music' Is Cracked

from the Just-In-Time-For-Xmas dept

It pretty much goes without saying at this point that any DRM can and will be cracked -- and, of course, once cracked, the content is now freely available pretty much anywhere. It still makes you wonder why anyone bothers. The latest is that Nokia's hyped up "Comes with Music" offering (which has been a commercial disappointment) has had its DRM cracked, and it's unlikely that much can be done to block the DRM cracking system. Once again, you have to ask why Nokia even bothered?

Filed Under: comes with music, drm
Companies: nokia

Nokia Reportedly Looking To Start Its Own MVNO In Japan

from the so-many-people-think-nokia-is-japanese-anyway... dept

A local report says that Nokia is considering setting up an MVNO in Japan, focused on its high-end Vertu line of handsets. Nokia has a small presence in Japan, making it one place -- along with the US -- where its market share lags badly behind its 40 percent or so global share. It would be surprising to see Nokia make a big move into becoming a virtual operator in any market, given that it sells most of its handsets through operators, and wouldn't want to jeopardize those relationships in any way. However, for its Vertu line, it could be a useful model. Vertu devices aren't your typical mobile phone: they cost upwards of several thousand dollars, and often don't include features common on much cheaper devices. They eschew many technical features in favor of expensive build materials and a concierge service for its deep-pocketed customers. Vertu handsets aren't going to be sold by or subsidized by operators, so Nokia could benefit by bundling service with the device as a virtual operator, making the Vertu brand the only one that has any contact with the customer. Given the small number of devices it sells, operators aren't likely to mind too much. But if Nokia made a bigger grab for the mass market, they'd certainly take exception.

Filed Under: japan, mvno, vertu
Companies: nokia

Putting iPhone Sales In Perspective

from the it's-good,-but... dept

We didn't have much (well, anything) to say about the recent iPhone launch because it certainly seemed as though the rest of the tech press/blogworld had that one... um... thoroughly covered. However, with the glowing reports earlier this week about how amazing it was that Apple had sold 1 million iPhones over the weekend, Carlo Longino has put that into perspective, noting that it's not quite as impressive as most people seem to think. First, as he notes, since the launch was international (rather than the original iPhones US-only launch), it's no surprise that it would sell many more. But, more importantly, he notes that recent stats on mobile handsets shows that 282 million handsets were sold in the first quarter of this year, and that Nokia alone appears to sell approximately 1.28 million handsets per day. So, yes, selling 1 million handsets over the weekend is a nice round milestone -- and certainly other handset makers are probably jealous of the attention it's getting. But, it's not having a huge impact on the overall handset market just yet.

Filed Under: iphone, mobile phones, sales
Companies: apple, nokia

Nokia's Open Sourcing Of Symbian Shows How Closed Markets Become Open

from the fear-not dept

Originally I wasn't going to write about Nokia's decision to purchase the rest of Symbian and then open source the code, but a few people have written in to ask about our take, and the more I think about it, the more interesting it becomes. There's certainly been a palpable fear lately among some that things like the locked-down iPhone represent a dangerous "future" to be avoided.

But that doesn't seem to have much historical support. New markets often are driven initially by locked down and proprietary solutions, but openness tends to prevail in the long run. The reason many markets start out with closed and proprietary solutions is that you need a comprehensive enough solution to address the market, and it's often difficult to do that in an ad hoc manner. A proprietary solution gives control to one person or a small group of people who can easily drive the project to where it needs to be to drive adoption. However, in the long run, more open solutions then win out, because competitors realize that the real game is being a platform, which is more important than being the comprehensive supplier. And the way to become a platform is to sign up as many developers as possible, and free them to make your platform much more valuable. That's much easier to do in an open or open source environment.

This is why we're seeing this particular decision to open up Symbian, and also explains Google's open approach with its Android offering. It also explains why Apple's iPhone, which was totally closed at the beginning, has been slowly opening up to try to combat the rise of more open competitors.

Finally, this move by Nokia is a recognition of the economics of infinite goods. Just as IBM helped massively boost its services business by betting big on Linux, Nokia recognizes that freeing up Symbian helps turn it into a services company as well. Freeing up that infinite good (the software) helps generate more demand for the scarce "services" provided by the company. There may be some stumbles along the way, but on the whole this is exactly the type of bet the company needs to be making. And, at the same time, it shows that there's little to fear concerning a future world of "closed" systems a la the iPhone. Every such closed system is merely an opportunity and an invitation for competitors to become more open.

Filed Under: mobile, open, open markets, open source, operating systems, symbian
Companies: nokia, symbian

Nokia Exec To Developers: Embrace DRM & Digital Locks Because I Say So

from the very-convincing dept

In recent years, we've seen the entertainment industry suddenly embrace mobile as a platform, incorrectly believing that its more locked-down nature would mean that it wouldn't face the same "threats" (which they should see as opportunities) of file sharing and open networks and services. However, as is always the way, more open systems are catching on and getting more usage, and more closed systems are having trouble getting traction. Rather than embracing that, however, it appears Nokia is pushing to hold back the tide.

Ben S writes in to highlight a rather unconvincing talk given by a Nokia VP trying to explain to open source developers why they need to embrace DRM, intellectual property, digital locks and subsidies in the mobile world. However, his reasoning basically amounts to "because I say so."

"Why do we need closed vehicles? We do. Some of these things harm the industry but they're here [as things stand]."

In other words, there's no actual reason to use these things, other than that Nokia says you must -- even though it knows such things harm the industry. Way to show leadership in the mobile industry. No wonder it seems like most innovation in the mobile space is coming from folks other than Nokia.

Filed Under: digital locks, drm, intellectual property, mobile, open source
Companies: nokia