Nokia is 'studying' IP lawsuit
Local firm seeks Bt540m over use of digital map data
Mobile-phone giant Nokia will take whatever steps are needed to defend itself against a Bt540-million patent-violation suit filed by a Thai software company, it said in a news release yesterday.
GlobeTech, a subsidiary of Thai information-technology conglomerate CDG Group, filed a complaint at the Intellectual Property and International Trade Court against Nokia (Thailand) and the latter’s partner Navteq over their alleged use of its digital map data without permission.
The company has also sued Aapico ITS, a subsidiary of Aapico Hitech, at the same court to claim Bt450 million on a similar allegation.
Nokia (Thailand) said it was studying the complaint by GlobeTech.
This is the first time a Thai company has sued a global company over alleged violation of a local patent.
GlobeTech general manager Wichai Saenghirunwattana said the company found Nokia (Thailand) and Navteq had used its digital map data in Nokia’s Ovi Map without permission. GlobeTech owns the licence for the digital map data, which it has collected in Thailand continuously for 20 years.
Navteq, a global provider of maps, traffic and location data (digital location content) enabling navigation, location-based services and mobile advertising around the world, is the provider of Nokia (Thailand)’s Ovi Map.
“Our investigative team found Nokia (Thailand) and Navteq had used our digital map data illegally since the middle of last year,” Wichai said. “We wrote to them in August to ask them to withdraw our map data from Ovi Map and recall Ovi Maps containing our map from the market. But they have not done anything according to our requests.
“They continue to violate our intellectual property, thus we have sued them in the Intellectual Property and International Trade Court. The court accepted the case last October 5.”
He added that the company found that in Ovi Map, there were specific data developed by GlobeTech.
He said the company had also sued Aapico ITS, a subsidiary of Aapico Hitech, claiming Bt450 million. Aapico ITS is a provider in Southeast Asia of car-navigation software that originated from a global supplier of original-equipment automotive components.
Wichai said GlobeTech’s main business was to develop local digital map data and license it for its partners, which integrate the data into their solutions for end-users. Its current business partners are ESRI (Thailand), Garmin, and SpeedNavi, which provides digital map data for Samsung’s smart phones.
“Usage of digital map data is rapidly growing in smart phones more than in personal navigator devices because of the increasing number of smart phones. The amount we sued Nokia (Thailand), Navteq and Aapico ITS for is the estimated revenue we lost from these violations,” Wichai said.
