Nick, shouldn't it be at least the "duel between fruit-themed toymaker Apple and ex-gumboots maker Nokia"?

So basically what you are saying is that, if a company spends billions of dollars in developing new technologies, another company can just come and take advantage of it without paying anything?

Besides, AFAIK, this also involves patents which are outside F/RAND. Apple is shooting blanks with its counter-attacks. There aren't any similar issues with other mobile phone manufacturers, because they know how these things work. Apple just wants a free ride.

"Nokia's patents are parts of IEEE standards, and as such are required to be licensed under Free or Reasonable And Non Discriminatory (F/RAND) terms."

Yeah, Nokia loves this kind of thing: push a bunch of patents into publicly-mandated standards and not only does the goose lay golden eggs, it shits out golden turds, too.

If it's gear that has to operate on public infrastructure, which the phone and data networks pretty much are, there shouldn't be a bunch of corporate King Johns demanding their own taxes on top of the ones which funded the infrastructure work in the first place.

As if banning Nokia imports to the USA would make a significant different to the level of business Nokia does in that country... although the N900 is a very nice device and is far more capable (and open) than anything produced by Apple.

as per usual, but the actual details are interesting. Nokia's patents are parts of IEEE standards, and as such are required to be licensed under Free or Reasonable And Non Discriminatory (F/RAND) terms. This means than anyone should be able to license them at standard rates.
Apple is saying that Nokia was demanding that Apple pay royalties AND grant rights to Apples own patents (which are NOT covered by F/RAND) which Nokia was infringing in it's own products. This, Apple claims, is a breach of the IEEE F/RAND rules.