A legal fight over patents between Nokia and Apple fell decidedly in Nokia’s favour after 20 months of deliberations. As a result, Apple and other manufacturers of Android cell phones could be financially hurt thanks in part to the settlement agreement reached between the two companies.

The legal wrangling came down to Apple’s intellectual property versus Nokia’s patent history. Business and legal experts overwhelmingly agreed that Apple lost the struggle as the settlement largely benefits Nokia in the end. Apple is forced to hand over a lump sum payment to Nokia along with residual royalties that significantly enhanced Nokia’s profits for the last two quarters of 2011. Shortly after news of the settlement reached investors, Nokia shares had climbed by 3 per cent.

Apple’s fights in the courtroom were not limited to Nokia. The company also had to face a separate legal battle with Android manufacturers Motorola, Samsung, and HTC. As for Nokia, they are expected to continue asking various other companies for royalties on their patents. Based on the strength of their victory over Apple, it is believed that more companies will capitulate to Nokia while fewer will openly resist and engage in protracted litigation.

Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents indicated that Nokia’s next move could be to go after mobile manufacturers whose smartphone designs are closely linked with Google software. The case between Apple and Nokia serves as a precedent, Mueller noted, one that could apply additional pressure on companies that incorporate Android software to pay a similar royalty structure.

Nokia took the opportunity to express their pleasure at Apple’s inclusion as a licensee. CEO Stephen Elop stated that the settlement represented a show of strength for Nokia’s patent portfolio. He also noted that the company looks forward to furthering their licensing ventures within mobile communications.

Apple, on the other hand, chose to highlight their small victories in the settlement. A spokesperson for the company underscored Apple’s ability to retain all licensing pertaining to the unique innovations surrounding their popular iPhone. The spokesperson also indicated that the company was relieved to put the episode behind it and move forward.

The origins of the struggle between Nokia and Apple began in October of 2009 when Nokia filed claims accusing Apple of infringing on at least 10 of its patents in the construction of the iPhone. Such patents included wireless LAN, GSM, and UMTS. Apple countersued Nokia, and eventually the two companies ran the number of patents under dispute to 75 across seven legal jurisdictions, including the state of Delaware in the United States to Dusseldorf, Germany.

In early 2009, plans were announced by the Ministry of Justice to increase magistrates and civil court fees, a plan that many lawyers were outspoken about at the time.

The initiative sought to raise court costs by more than triple the standing rate in 2009. The plan was announced in a consultation paper published by the Ministry of Justice entitled Civil Court Fees 2008.

The order to attend a hearing issued by a bailiff was set to jump £70, from £30 up to £100. Detailed assessments wherein the person conducting the filing was assisted legally would come with the most dramatic of increases, spiking from £105 to anywhere between £300-£1500. Another sharp price rise affected commencement of committal applications in current proceedings, which rose from £90 to £250. Charging orders would exact a cost of £100, up from the 2008 price of £55.

The President of Law Society, Paul Marsh, spoke out about the fees, noting that the proposed increases at the time threatened to grow unreasonably high while also keeping individuals from having open access to the justice system. Marsh indicated that the fees could be tolerated if the extra money was put into good use, thereby justifying the increases. However, he claimed that the courts are no more equipped despite previous fee hikes. Additional rises in costs will only lengthen the existing delays in the judicial process while increasing the solicitor’s costs that many courtroom users are forced to pay.

Only a couple years prior to the 2009 increase, court costs were raised between 2007 and 2008. The price hike netted £472m, £135m shy of the £607m operating cost for civil and family courts. The consultation paper put out by the Ministry of Justice indicated that the court’s chief aims are to cover the £135m gap while raising income at the same time.

In late 2009, newly-elected President of the United States Barack Obama was selected for jury duty in Chicago, Illinois, the President’s former hometown.

The summons was addressed to the name Barack Hussein Obama and was listed as residing at Obama’s previous full-time estate at 5046 South Greenwood Avenue in Chicago. The notice informed President Obama that he was to report for jury duty at the Bridgeview courthouse in Cook County, Illinois.

At the time of the summons, Obama was in permanent residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., site of the White House. He was served shortly before the State of the Union address, his first as President. Other presidential duties during that period included meeting with the 2009 National Basketball Association Champion Los Angeles Lakers as well as President Massoud Barzani of Kurdistan. Needless to say, Obama’s representatives notified the courthouse in Chicago that the President was busy attending to other matters of national and international importance.

President Obama’s tenure as a juror would have been aided by his law degree from Harvard as well as his credentials as a former professor at the prestigious University of Chicago. By contrast to the President’s withdrawal from service, another high-profile celebrity who calls Chicago home, Oprah Winfrey, was summoned to court in 2004 and completed her civic duty. Ms. Winfrey served on a murder trial that eventually saw a first-degree conviction against the 27-year-old male defendant. Despite her massive media empire, Ms. Winfrey put her obligations aside and accepted the meager $17 per day stipend offered by the court.

Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, was called up for jury duty almost one year after his second term began in 2005. Bush was summoned to a court near his hometown in Crawford, Texas, but he opted out of service. Bush was overseeing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as enduring scrutiny over his leadership in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina along the United States Gulf coast. Within the same month as Bush, his opponent in the 2004 Presidential elections, John Kerry, was notified of his jury call-up. Unlike Bush and Obama, Kerry reported for service and was later chosen to be jury foreman.

Translators in the United Arab Emirates will soon be required to complete additional testing and licensing per a law being handed down from the Federal National Council.

As part of the new law, translators must apply to the Ministry of Justice for a translator’s licence as well as pass a test of certification. The committees on legal and legislative affairs, two departments of the FNC, passed the law in order to guarantee that only translators with the proper credentials can perform translation and interpretation work in the UAE. At present, courtroom translators are excluded from the bill’s requirements.

Not only must individual translators obtain proper licencing, but companies that specialise in translation services must likewise apply for an operating permit. Translation firms will also be compelled to purchase insurance going forward. Operating permits are exclusive to each emirate, and the bill will become law later in 2012.

According to committee chairman Ahmed Al Zaabi, the insurance mandate will offer protection for firms and translators against lost documentation and other business-related injury. This requirement is one of 39 separate articles in the bill that collectively replace laws on translation and interpretation that varied across all emirates. Any translator or translation company that does not conform to the bill’s mandates within one year of its passage will be banned from continuing their practices.

Exemptions will not be considered for translators and firms that have previously registered and/or obtained a licence from the Ministry of Justice. Mr. Al Zaabi noted that the new rules apply to all translators and translation companies regardless of prior licencing. The uniform application of the bill ensures that everyone who is interested in providing translation and interpretation services are up-to-date on their qualification and insurance.

Musbih Al Kitbi, committee secretary, indicated that the field of translation had gone too long without order and regulation. The new law from the FNC would make such disorganisation a thing of the past while weeding out poorly qualified firms and translators.

One item of note that both Mr. Al Zaabi and Mr. Al Kitbi confirmed was that the courts would find exemption under the new bill. Due to the lack of translators and interpreters who are available for courtroom service, the FNC has seen fit to relax the requirements in such situations. According to Al Zabbi, the courts possess unique considerations that would be hampered by the revised law.

The case of Rodolfo Hinojosa-Soto was recently called in state Supreme Court Judge John Brunetti’s court. Joe Coolican, Chief Assistant DA, headed for the prosecutor’s table, whereas Paul Carey, the defense lawyer, headed towards the defense stand.

At the exact same time, Judge Brunetti’s attention was drawn to Omar Ruggeri, dressed in a dark suit, dress shirt, tie and eyeglasses, as he too made his way to the defense stand along with Carey.

“Are you a lawyer?” Brunetti asked.

Ruggeri immediately turned to Carey assuming the question was aimed at him. The judge repeated the question a further few times, before Carey stated that Ruggeri happened to be the Spanish-speaking interpreter for his client, as certified by the court.

“He doesn’t like to be insulted like that,” Carey jokingly said about the interpreter being mistaken for a lawyer. He then turned to Ruggeri and added, “It’s supposed to be a compliment.”

Judge Brunneti admitted that he had made this assumption based on Ruggeri’s deportment and overall appearance. A brief discussion about the dictionary definition of the verb “deport” followed prior to the court focusing on the legal issues that surrounded the pending Hinojosa-Soto murder case.

HTC recently claimed that Apple had violated certain patents of theirs, however, in late November 2011, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled in favour of Apple. If the decision had happened to go the other way this would have, without doubt, slowed down, or even completely stopped, the import of iPads and iPhones. This could have spelt disaster for Apple, as ever since the release of iPhone 4S, their smartphones and pads have been in short supply.

July saw HTC purchase S3 Graphics for $300 million, and they expected the S3 patent portfolio to strengthen their legal battle against Apple. Winston Yung, CFO of HTC, even revealed that the patents would be used “defensively and offensively”.

An interesting turn of events was reported by Bloomeberg, who claim that HTC could have simply licensed the patents, as S3 Graphics was part-owned by HTC Chairman, Cher Wang. “We are disappointed, but respect the ITC’s decision,” HTC General Counsel Grace Lei has said in a current statement sent to press members. “While the outcome is not what we hoped for, we will review the ruling once the commission provides it and will then consider all options, including appeal.”

However, there are still plenty of disputes between these two powerhouses that are in the pipeline. The Foss patents blog recently reported, “HTC’s own first ITC complaint against Apple is rather unlikely to result in a finding of any violation. An Administrative Law Judge made an initial determination of no violation, and the ITC staff (the Office of Unfair Import Investigations) does not appear to oppose the ALJ’s position.”

The Foss Patents blog added a post in July 2011 that said, “It’s hard to see how any Android device could not infringe them, or how companies could work around them.” Further fuel has been added to the fire by Ken Hyers, an analyst with Technology Business Research, who believes that the claiming simply states that S3 have failed to prove their claims against Apple, which in effect leaves the door open for future filings if S3 can build a stronger case. He also states that this was simply a “skirmish” in what is likely to be a long series of battles “as competing mobile patent holders battle to extract licensing fees from Google and Android OEMs.”