Amazon has filed a lawsuit against Nokia in Delaware federal court, accusing the latter of infringing a dozen cloud computing patents.
The complaint alleges that Nokia misused Amazon Web Services' (AWS) technology for its own cloud offerings, reports Reuters.
This lawsuit comes less than a year after Nokia launched its own patent infringement case against Amazon regarding its video-related technologies in its streaming services and devices.
Nokia said in a statement that it would "review these matters and defend ourselves vigorously in court."
Amazon is arguing that Nokia is using technology that the company invented in the early 2000s 'without permission,' and is asking the court for an order blocking the alleged infringement, and an unspecified amount of monetary damages.
"Since its inception in 2006, AWS has fundamentally transformed large-scale computing and Internet communications. Before AWS launched its pioneering technology, large-scale computing relied predominantly on on-premise physical servers and software installations," the lawsuit says.
It added: "In late 2020—nearly 15 years after AWS launched—Nokia announced a “new company strategy” focused on cloud computing, establishing a “Cloud and Network Services” business division."
Amazon argues that Nokia's strategy actually involved leveraging Amazon's patented solutions and technology - "For instance, as discussed in detail below, Nokia CloudBand infringes Amazon patents related to configuring virtual machines and managing distributed application execution, in addition to autoscaling resources used during program execution." The company's complaint also surrounds Nokia Nuage Networks, claiming it infringes patents related to managing communications in virtual networks and emulating physical network devices.
The lawsuit lies in stark contrast to the fact that Nokia has all but withdrawn from the cloud computing market, having jettisoned much of its cloud offerings in June 2023.
Just last month, Raghav Sahgal, head of cloud and network services business group said: "With the amount of spend that is going into the Red Hats and the hyperscalers and the resources and people and talent, it was very, very clear to us that's not going to be an area we will be able to compete in."
In addition, Nokia is a cloud partner of AWS in Germany.
The lawsuit filed by Nokia against Amazon in October 2023 remains ongoing, arguing that Amazon Prime Video and streaming devices "infringe a mix of Nokia’s multimedia patents covering multiple technologies including video compression, content delivery, content recommendation and aspects related to hardware."
A person familiar with the matter told DCD that although Amazon claims that Nokia has been unwilling to accept fair market terms for its patented IP, the company hopes to come to a mutually agreeable resolution.
