The mobile phone patent punch-up

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23 October 2011 Last updated at 16:31 GMT By Leo Kelion Business reporter Google came to HTC's aid in its patent disputes with Apple The patent system was created to spur on innovation. But over recent years it has sparked an arms war between some of the world's leading mobile phone companies.

The likes of Apple and Microsoft do not only sue their rivals to protect their own inventions, but go on to buy third party patents to build up their weapon stockpile.

What is more, they appear increasingly willing to litigate.

The number of handset patent infringement filings to the US courts grew from 24 cases in 2006, to 84 cases in 2010, according to Lex Machina, an intellectual property litigation data provider.

It expects that number to grow to 97 cases this year, reflecting more than a four-fold rise in the space of half a decade.

"Filings in this litigation space appeared to have hit a plateau this summer, but are now strongly back on the rise," says Lex Machina's chief executive, Josh Becker.

Accelerated innovation

Part of the problem is the speed at which the industry is evolving.

The US patent system offers inventors a limited monopoly on new ideas lasting twenty years from when they are filed. However, mobile phone users expect giant leaps in progress over a much shorter time span.

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We all lose when the central competitive arena switches from serving customers to winning at high-stakes litigation”

End Quote Prof Kevin Werbach Pennsylvania University As the devices transform into music players, cameras, internet browsers and beyond, they involve an increasing amount of intellectual property.

There are now potentially more than 250,000 active patents relevant to a single smartphone, according to RPX, a San Francisco based patent aggregator and licensor.

"The devices we used 10 years ago to make voice calls have become hand-held computers incorporating a vast array of software and hardware, which increases the breadth of patent exposure," said RPX's chief executive, John Amster.

"And this problem increases with the capabilities of these devices to do new things.

The lawyers become involved when a company either doesn't want to share its advances, or wants to be paid a fee for their use. Some experts believe this is now becoming a default tactic.

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Lawsuits between major mobile handset makers. Click on the names to see who is suing whom

"For some time, the threat of mutually assured destruction among the major technology players such as IBM and Microsoft limited the outbreak of patent warfare," says Kevin Werbach, associate professor of legal studies and business ethics at Pennsylvia University's Wharton School

"Today however, especially in the mobile market, asymmetric threats are widespread. There may be a few local winners in the mobile patent wars, but we all lose when the central competitive arena switches from serving customers to winning at high-stakes litigation."

Keeping track of the tangled web of claims and counter claims is becoming a complex task in itself.

Microsoft is suing handset maker Motorola Mobility over its use of video coding and other patents, but Motorola is counter suing over Microsoft's implementation of email, instant messaging and Wi-fi.

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When you get two technology giants battling each other, they will always ensure there is no sign of weakness”

End Quote Florian Mueller FOSS Patents Motorola is being taken over by Google, which is being sued by Oracle over its use of the Java programming language in its Android operating system.

Google also intervened in HTC's legal fights against Apple, selling some of its patents to the Taiwanese handset maker. HTC claims Apple violates its power management technology and other innovations, while Apple challenges the way HTC uses touch screens and gesture recognition.

Meanwhile, Apple has used patent lawsuits to prevent Samsung Electronics from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer in Australia and Germany. The South Korean firm has retaliated trying to ban iPhone sales in Japan and Australia.

Samsung's Tab 10.1 is at the centre of a patent dispute with Apple

LG, Sony, Ericsson, Kodak and Nokia have also been active in the courts.

Litigation contagion

Florian Mueller keeps track of developments at his blog, Foss Patents, and was recently commissioned by Microsoft to study certain types of patent litigation.

"When you get two technology giants battling each other, they will always ensure there is no sign of weakness," he says.

"So you will see one firm counter-suing against the other, even if their claim is of dubious merit, to make sure they don't go down without a fight."

"Litigants look for jurisdictions that they believe are favourable to their interests, which can give them a quick win... as a result the disputes spread geographically."

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We don't allow others to... get a free ride on the back of our innovation”

End Quote Louise Pentland Chief legal officer, Nokia However, Nokia stresses decisions to take legal action are not taken lightly.

The Finnish phone maker recently settled a patent lawsuit with Apple after the US firm agreed to pay a one-off charge and ongoing royalties.

"Our industry requires significant R&D. Nokia alone has invested around 45bn euros ($61.8bn, £39.4bn) in the past two decades," the firm's chief legal officer, Louise Pentland, told the BBC.

"Companies which use the resulting inventions must have permission and compensate those who took the risks and invested to create them."

"So, though litigation is not Nokia's preferred option, we don't allow others to use our intellectual property without authorisation or get a free ride on the back of our innovation," says Ms Pentland.

Legal logic

While Nokia tackled Apple head-on, the iPhone maker and Microsoft are litigating against handset makers using Google's Android system, rather than the search giant itself.

Google does not charge for the software, but instead relies on its partners' devices driving users to its various search services. The firm's latest results show its mobile advertising business is generating revenue at rate of $2.5bn a year, so giving away Android for "free" makes financial sense.

However that creates a major problem for its rivals.

Microsoft's business model relies on handset makers paying for the right to use its Windows 7 mobile system. Apple has to price in the development costs of its iOS system when selling its iPhones.

Microsoft's solution seems to be to force Android manufacturers to pay it a royalty if they use Google's software. At least that was the outcome of patent talks with HTC in 2010 and Samsung last month.

The terms have never been disclosed, but Citigroup analyst, Walter Pritchard, believes HTC and Samsung pay Microsoft between $1-5 for each Android handset sold.

"I think with approximately 50% of Android handsets covered by royalty arrangements, they will continue to pursue the same course of legal action... for the remaining smaller Android players," Mr Pritchard says.

By contrast, Apple seems more intent on keeping its innovations proprietary.

"We spend a lot of time and money and resource on coming up with incredible innovation and we don't like it when someone else takes those," said Apple's chief executive, Tim Cook, after the firm released its most recent results.

He declined to elaborate further.

However, a recent court filing by one of Apple's lawyers revealed it could be willing to license Samsung some of its "lower-level patents", but in return Samsung would need to agree to "cease copying the features and functionality" of Apple's products.

Apple has agreed to pay royalty fees to Nokia, but has not disclosed the amounts involved Patent price inflation

As patent attacks become more common place, companies are stocking up on ammunition.

In December 2010, Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and the data specialist EMC spent $450m on 882 patents, and patent applications, belonging to Norvell, an ailing infrastructure software provider.

That sum was then dwarfed by the $4.5bn paid in July for a 6,000 strong patent portfolio belonging to bankrupt telecoms manufacturer, Nortel. Microsoft and Apple shared the library with Blackberry maker, Research in Motion, and three others.

Then, in September, Google revealed plans to buy Motorola Mobility, and its 24,500 patent library, for $12.5bn.

Notably, the deal was secured one month after Google's Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, wrote a blog titled "When patents attack".

"Our competitors are waging a patent war on Android," he said.

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We're in a situation now of patent poker where the deck has been redealt and everyone has a new hand”

End Quote Ben Wood CCS Insight "Unless we act, consumers could face rising costs for Android devices - and fewer choices for their next phone."

Although vast sums are involved, experts say it could prove cost-effective if the acquisitions encourage cross-licensing deals under which firms swap permission to use each others' inventions.

"We're in a situation now of patent poker where the deck has been redealt and everyone has a new hand, and all the patent lawyers are saying we need to review our positions," says Ben Wood, chief of research at mobile analysts CCS Insight.

"I would like to think this might result in renewed sanity and a realisation that trying to kill each other in court isn't to the greater good of the industry."

However others are less optimistic.

"As long as major companies feel they need to shore up their patent portfolios, we'll continue to see patents valued as defensive assets in a total war, rather than based on their potential for value creation," says Professor Werbach.

"While in the short run Nortel's creditors and Motorola's shareholders may have benefitted from patent price inflation, the overall impact will be significant market distortion."

On Tuesday, we will look at the role of so-called patent trolls in the mobile patent wars, and whether fair licensing rules can boost the industry.

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Mobile phone cancer link rejected

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21 October 2011 Last updated at 01:11 GMT By Nick Triggle Health correspondent, BBC News Mobile phone safety has been much debated over the past two decades Further research has been published suggesting there is no link between mobile phones and brain cancer.

The risk mobiles present has been much debated over the past 20 years as use of the phones has soared.

The latest study led by the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Denmark looked at more than 350,000 people with mobile phones over an 18-year period.

Researchers concluded users were at no greater risk than anyone else of developing brain cancer.

The findings, published on the British Medical Journal website, come after a series of studies have come to similar conclusions.

'Reassuring'

But there has also been some research casting doubt on mobile phone safety, prompting the World Health Organization to warn that they could still be carcinogenic.

In doing so, the WHO put mobile phones in the same category as coffee, meaning a link could not be ruled out but could not be proved either.

The Department of Health continue to advise that anyone under the age of 16 should use mobile phones only for essential purposes and keep all calls short.

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These results are the strongest evidence yet that using a mobile phone does not seem to increase the risk of cancers of the brain or central nervous system in adults”

End Quote Hazel Nunn Cancer Research UK The Danish study, which built on previous research that has already been published by carrying out a longer follow-up, found there was no significant difference in rates of brain or central nervous system cancers among those who had mobiles and those that did not.

Of the 358,403 mobile phone owners looked at, 356 gliomas (a type of brain cancer) and 846 cancers of the central nervous system were seen - both in line with incidence rates among those who did not own a mobile.

Even among those who had had mobiles the longest - 13 years or more - the risk was no higher, the researchers concluded.

But they still said mobile phone use warranted continued follow up to ensure cancers were not developing over the longer term, and to see what the effect was in children.

Hazel Nunn, head of evidence and health information at Cancer Research UK, said: "These results are the strongest evidence yet that using a mobile phone does not seem to increase the risk of cancers of the brain or central nervous system in adults."

Prof Anders Ahlbom, from Sweden's Karolinska Institute, praised the way the study was conducted, adding the findings were "reassuring".

Prof David Spiegelhalter, an expert specialising in the understanding of risk who is based at the University of Cambridge, said: "The mobile phone records only go up to 1995 and so the comparison is mainly between early and late adopters, but the lack of any effect on brain tumours is still very important evidence."

And Prof Malcolm Sperrin, director of medical physics at Royal Berkshire Hospital, said: "The findings clearly reveal that there is no additional overall risk of developing a cancer in the brain although there does seem to be some minor, and not statistically significant, variations in the type of cancer."

But the researchers themselves do accept there were some limitations to the study, including the exclusion of "corporate subscriptions", thereby excluding people who used their phones for business purposes, who could be among the heaviest users.

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Apple Announces A New Phone And Voice Recognition, But Not The iPhone 5

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Enlarge Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks at the event introducing the new iPhone.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks at the event introducing the new iPhone.

Today was widely expected to bring the announcement of the iPhone 5 — maybe with a bigger screen, a different home button, or a differently shaped case — at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California.

It didn't.

That's not to say Apple didn't say anything of note at its rather lengthy presentation. Not at all. But the big game-changing piece of new hardware didn't come to pass. Aficionados waited, wondering and chattering on liveblogs and on Twitter to see if it would come at the end in Apple's traditional "one more thing" fashion.

It didn't.

The rumors that did come true:

iPhone 4S. The new phone is the iPhone 4S, which Apple is selling on the basis of a better processor, better graphics, and an improved camera, but the same body as the iPhone 4.

Siri. The other thing the iPhone 4S has is Siri, a technology Apple acquired that originated with a popular app called Siri Assistant. It allows you to communicate with your phone by asking it natural-language questions. It's integrated with other functions like calendar, mapping, texting, and checking the weather, and those who love it refer to it as "artificial intelligence."

World phone. The iPhone 4S will work on both GSM and CDMA networks. If you're not a tech-head, what that means is that your phone will work around the world. If you travel a lot overseas, you're likely very familiar with this phenomenon. If you don't, and if you already have a phone that works where you live, this won't mean a whole lot to you.

Sprint. Sprint will now carry the iPhone, and that's a huge development for Sprint customers who have held off on getting smartphones because Sprint's smartphones were Androids, or for those who have an Android phone or would prefer an iPhone. It's not the first time this has happened — it's essentially a replay of when the iPhone finally came to Verizon. But it takes the iPhone even farther away from one of its original, key limitations, which was the inability to use the carrier of your choice.

Other stuff. Yes, "other stuff." There were other announcements today: Better integration with cloud services, operating system upgrades (which actually weren't new today), and upgrades to other Apple devices, including changes to the iPod Touch and iPod Nano.

So what does this mean to you?

 

For current iPhone devotees. For the people who already love their iPhones, the focus is on getting them to upgrade. The temptations are supposed to be the faster processor, better camera, and Siri, but there doesn't necessarily seem to be any one giant thing that current users will absolutely have to have. Moreover, one of the writers at Mashable mentioned during their liveblog that if the iPhone 4S has the same body as the iPhone 4, nobody is going to know you have one, which takes a bit of the naked-competition aspect out of the need to upgrade.

For users of other smartphones. If you have an Android phone, there aren't a lot of obvious reasons in this release to switch to an iPhone — unless, that is, you have Sprint or you really, really want to try Siri.

For non-smartphone users. If you haven't gone to a smartphone before, Apple doesn't seem to be focusing on any particular reason why this would be your moment. (Unless, as stated before, you have Sprint and have been holding out for the iPhone rather than an Android phone). But still, every time there's a new release, a certain number of people decide that this is when they're going to jump.

There's one exception, though: Apple announced that if you don't need the newest and niftiest, the prices on existing iPhones will drop — the iPhone 3GS will be free with a new contract. Dropping the amount of money a consumer has to choke up in order to get into a new kind of technology is sharply reminiscent of the recent drops in Amazon's Kindle prices, and could have the same ability to tempt newbies who don't demand high-end versions of anything.

It's important to keep in mind, I think, that much of this depends on what you personally require in a phone, and it doesn't need to come down to "brilliant" versus — pardon the indelicacy — "sucks."

Just as there are people who are firmly committed to the Apple model, there are people who can't stand it. Apple acts as a kind of curator of the technology used by the people who own its products: It only has one high-end phone at a time (with adjustments for the amount of storage space), and that's the phone you get. Apple decides what will be on it, what will be left off of it, and what it's decided you don't need anymore. Apple people love this quality — it makes everything simple, it makes everything work out of the box, and as long as you stay within the Apple universe, their products are famous for working together very easily.

By contrast, Android phones vary in size, features, price — you choose your own compromises. As a personal example, I greatly prefer a physical keyboard rather than a touchscreen, and I don't mind that it makes the phone thicker. It's strictly a preference. There are still Android phones that have physical keyboards — you have that choice.

At the same time, while my Android phone is very much integrated with Google, it's not integrated as smoothly with as many different things out of the box as the iPhone is.

So some of this comes down to something elemental: How you want to relate to technology. Price and carriers will never convert all the Android people to Apple, any more than they would convert all the Apple people to Android.

Voice recognition is the same way. Apple loves Siri, and so do a lot of the people who use it — they love the way you can ask it for directions or ask it in natural language whether you have a meeting on Friday. Me? I don't talk to my phone. I don't need to talk to my phone. Buttons are fine. They are clear. I know I'm not being misunderstood. I'd worry too much — what if it didn't actually hear me? What if it thought I said Thursday? How much do you trust your phone?

Speaking of trust, Apple is also promoting a feature called "location sharing" that would let you find other people using their iPhones. It has parental controls, meaning that your kids can't turn it off. It's about as close as you're going to get to a LoJack for your children. That would be the upside. The downside would be that you'd better know the capability well and how to use it and how to turn it off.

There's some adjusting of expectations going on: Gizmodo calls the iPhone 4S only a "minor update," and The New York Times reported that Apple stock was almost immediately down.

The proof, as always, will come with Apple's ability to sell a new product to new customers and convince the people who cannot live without their iPhones that they can't live without this one, either.

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Document Shows How Phone Firms Treat Private Data

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A document obtained by the ACLU shows for the first time how the four largest cellphone companies in the U.S. treat data about their subscribers' calls, text messages, Web surfing and approximate locations.

The one-page document from the Justice Department's cybercrime division shows, for instance, that Verizon Wireless keeps, for a year, information about which cell towers subscriber phones connect to. That data that can be used to figure out where the phone has been, down to the level of a neighborhood. AT&T has kept the same data since July 2008.

The sheet is a guide for law enforcement, which can request the information from the carriers through legal channels. The North Carolina section of the American Civil Liberties Union obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act request, the ACLU said. Wired.com reported earlier about the document, which is dated August 2010.

The document was released by the ACLU Wednesday, but has been hiding in plain sight on the website of the Vermont public defender's office. It can be found there through a Google search, but only if the searcher knows the exact title of the document.

A few data points from the sheet were known outside law enforcement circles, but wireless carriers have not been open about their policies. They aren't required to keep the data, and they keep the same information for varying lengths of time. Some don't keep data at all that other companies store. For instance, it says T-Mobile USA doesn't keep any information on Web browsing activity. Verizon, on the other hand, keeps some information for up to a year that can be used to ascertain if a particular phone visited a particular Web site.

According to the sheet, Sprint Nextel Corp.'s Virgin Mobile brand keeps the text content of text messages for three months. Verizon keeps it for three to five days. None of the other carriers keep texts at all, but they keep records of who texted who for more than a year.

The document says AT&T keeps for five to seven years a record of who text messages who and when, but not the content of the messages. Virgin Mobile only keeps that data for two to three months.

The carriers don't have recordings of calls, but keep information about calls that are made and received for at least a year.

The ACLU said it believes people have a right to know how long phone companies keep records of their activities.

Although the sheet is dated August 2010, Tom Slovenski, a private investigator specializing in cellphone data, said it is still accurate.

Sprint spokesman Jason Gertzen said he couldn't comment on the specific figures in the sheet. Normally, he said, a subpoena, court order, or customer consent form from a recognized law enforcement agency is necessary for the carrier to hand out data. However, Sprint also responds to emergency requests, as in missing persons cases, if the police can document their need, he said.

The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A bill in Congress would force wired Internet service providers to keep records of the network addresses assigned to each subscriber for 18 months. That would help investigators link online activity to specific homes. But the bill doesn't apply to wireless links. A series of such bills have been proposed over the years, but haven't passed.

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Critics call it unconstitutional; local officials say they can constrain people with criminal pasts.

The Supreme Court seemed deeply divided on the case.

When it comes to capital punishment there, experts say, "the train runs on its own."

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Microsoft, Google Tussle Over Android Phone Patents

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Jin Sung-chul/AP

The Galaxy S II is a Samsung smartphone that runs on Android. Analysts say Microsoft could be getting as much as $15 for each phone Samsung sells.

Apple's iPhone may be the most talked about smartphone on the market, but there are far more phones using Google's Android operating system — 40 percent of the U.S. market. Microsoft's Windows for Mobile comes in near the bottom, with around 5 percent.

But Microsoft says Android steps all over its patents.

"Microsoft has invested for decades billions of dollars. In fact, this year alone we were investing over $9 billion in research and development in creating innovations in the software space for these type of devices," Microsoft Deputy General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez says.

Microsoft has told phone-makers using the Android operating system that they need to pay up, because Android is built on software that is patented by Microsoft.

Samsung, the largest maker of Android phones, isn't saying what it's paying. But analysts say Microsoft could be getting as much as $15 for each Android phone Samsung sells.

Julie Samuels, a patent attorney with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, is skeptical of Microsoft's motives. She says companies that aren't winning with consumers often assert their patents.

"When faxes started to go out of style, all of a sudden you saw this crazy uptick in litigation among fax companies," Samuels says. "It's because when a party isn't making much money selling their product, they realize they can maybe monetize their patents instead."

Not all companies have agreed to pay Microsoft licensing fees on Android. Motorola has gone to court, though that company's mobile unit was recently acquired by Google. Barnes & Noble is in court because it's using the Android system for its Nook e-reader. Kent Walker, Google's general counsel, says Microsoft hasn't proven that Android steps on any of its patents. And he questions the quality of Microsoft's patents.

"Many software patents are simply overbroad and vague," Walker says. "In fact, when they've been re-examined by the patent office, they're either invalidated or cut back, roughly 80 percent of the time."

Microsoft and Samsung won't say which Android patents are part of their licensing deal. But it is possible to see some of the patents because they're being used to sue Motorola and Barnes & Noble.

Patent No. 5889522 — a patent for bringing up different windows in a browser — was filed in 1994 before the days of smartphones and e-readers. David Martin, an expert who evaluates the value of patents, says not only is it a broad patent — it wasn't even a novel idea. Martin says Microsoft had a lot of company.

"They were not alone in the universe, but they were very clearly in heavy company in what they were doing," Martin says.

He says that in the 1990s, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office was bombarded with requests for software patents, and there was a lot of confusion. Often, patents were granted to companies for the same thing.

Now it's easier to settle than it is to sort it all out.

"It becomes expedient for parties to settle, because it allows the secrecy ... that protects the absence of quality in both portfolios from ever having to be confronted," Martin says.

Of course, not everyone agrees that Microsoft is holding a portfolio of lousy patents, even if some of them aren't good. Florian Mueller, an intellectual property consultant, says that Android may be infringing on Microsoft patents.

"Maybe not all of them are valid, maybe not all of them would be found to be infringed, based on a detailed analysis," Mueller says. "But chances really are, if they asserted everything in court, if they went to court over their whole past portfolio, that probably Android would infringe hundreds of them."

We may get a chance to find out if that's true: If Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility is approved, then it will be Google facing off directly against Microsoft in court over its Android operating system.

But in the meantime, Android phones may cost more because the makers have to pay Microsoft. And that may help give Microsoft's Windows operating system a better chance in the smartphone market.

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All Things Considered–

Apple introduced the new iPhone 4S today in California.

The newly updated iPhone 4S will go on sale Oct. 14. It will work on the GSM and CDMA networks.

While we wait for Apple news, we're wondering whether you care — and why.

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TECHNOLOGY, Researcher Claims Windows Phone 7 Snoops On Users' Locations

When it was revealed this spring that iPhone secretly reported on users' locations, Microsoft made clear that Windows Phone 7 didn't do the same thing. But now a security researcher claims that Windows Phone 7 does in fact gather location data and report it to a server without users' knowledge.
Rafael Rivera, first known for jailbreaking Windows Phone 7, claims on the Within Windows blog that Windows Phone 7 gathers location information, and then sends it to Microsoft servers without users' knowledge.
He says that when you run the camera app, several packets of location information are sent to the agps.location.live.net server and several to Microsoft's Location Inference service hosted at inference.location.live.net. He says it is done without users knowing that it is happening. Here's what he says is sent from his test device, a Samsung Focus:
OS Version (7.0.7004.WM7_7.0_Ship(mojobld).20100916-1429)Device Information (SAMSUNG/SGH-i917 and SAMSUNG Electronics/SAMSUNG MITs/i917UCJJ1/[digits])Wireless access points around me (MAC addresses, power levels)Various GUID-based identifiers
He concludes:
In response to these packets was pin-point accurate positioning information --- all before I granted the Camera application access to location data.
Congress held hearings about smartphones and location data, and Microsoft testified that Windows Phone 7 didn't report on location data without the user giving approval. If Rivera is right, it appears that testimony might not be true.
I can't say that I know the truth about this. But if it is true, it's certainly disturbing, and something Microsoft will need to fix right away. Windows Phone 7 has enough problems right now. It doesn't need another one having to do with snooping on its users.

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TECHNOLOGY, Nokia ships the N9, his first and last MeeGo phone

Shipping the N9, his first and last Smartphone is based on the operating system has started MeeGo Nokia, the company said on Tuesday.
MeeGo is one of the operating systems, Nokia decided to leave in February when it announced plans to use Microsoft's Windows phone as the primary operating system for smartphones. The other operating system, the Nokia nixed was Symbian.
Move four months after the announcement of Windows phone, Nokia announced the N9. It has no physical buttons and relies instead on the 3.9 inch AMOLED touch screen for navigation.
The N9 interface has three home view-applications, events and live applications. Users download applications from a Nokia store, can that be called Ovi store, the company said.
Can the phone with HSDPA (high-speed download packet access) to 14.4 1 m of bps (bits per second) or Wi-Fi Internet access. Other features include A-GPS, an 8-megapixel camera that can shoot video in 720 p and an HTML5 compatible browser, Nokia.
The N9 weighs 135 grams and is 12.1 mm thick.
The estimated retail price is €480 (US$ 650) for the version with 16 GB memory and €560 for the model that can be stored to 64 GB. The prices are before taxes or subsidies.
Even though Nokia Windows phone decided on MeeGo for their future phones, the company users leave will not decide N9, buy, the company said. It the Nokia N9 2015 at least, will support including software updates, support and service support, said a spokesman for email.
On a Nokia website, consumers in some 20 countries-including China, Russia and Portugal, but not France, Germany, United Kingdom or the USA-can be notified when the telephone is available.
Sweden, operator three hopes the first units to 6 get Oct., a spokesman said.
Nokia is expected 26 on October to its first Windows phone Nokia World Conference, beginning to start shipping before the end of the year.

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