Products belonging to Withings, a subsidiary of Nokia Corp (NYSE:NOK), have been pulled from the shelves of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) brick-and-mortar retail stores as well as on the online stores. This comes amidst a patent fight between the California, Cupertino-based tech giant and the Finnish networking technology company.
On the web store, the information that visitors get when searching for Withings products reads as follows: “Looking for something? We thought so. However, the product you’re looking for is no longer available on apple.com.”
Affected products
Among the products belonging to Withings that Apple has pulled from its stores are fitness trackers which have been a feature on the stores for more than two years. Some of the affected products include the Smart Body Analyzer and the Body Cardio Scale.
The row between the two companies started when Nokia filed a lawsuit against Apple accusing it of patent infringement. In the suit, Nokia listed 32 patents as having been infringed by Apple. In a counter move, an anti-trust lawsuit was filed by Apple against nine companies that are registered as the holders of the patents with the accusation that they are working in cahoots with Nokia in an extortion attempt against Apple. A countersuit by Apple was also filed against Nokia.
FRAND rules
In its lawsuit, the argument that Apple is using is based on FRAND rules which seek to promote making patents available to any firm at rates that are reasonable since they are important and necessary in developing devices that have become essential in life like smartphones. The FRAND rules are favored by companies that want the patents but not by the companies that hold the patents since they limit the amount of revenue that can be generated from those in possession of the patents.
This is not the first time that the two tech companies are engaged in a patent dispute. Five years ago, after an acrimonious battle, the two firms reached a settlement where Apple was to pay Nokia a one-time payment and royalties for use of Nokia’s smartphone technology. The dispute comes just as Nokia-branded phones running on the Android operating system are about to be launched in early 2017.
In the last trading session on December 23, 2017, Apple edged up 0.20% to close the day at $116.52 a share.
