In response to the lawsuit that Nokia filed against Apple in October, Apple has responded with one of its own. It goes so far as to say that Nokia "stole" from Apple. This could get ugly.Nokia sued Apple back in October claiming that it infringed on 10 patents dealing with certain wireless technologies. Nokia has a huge portfolio of patents pertaining to the way cell phones actually behave like cell phones. Nokia believes that Apple dipped a little to liberally into the patent pool without paying up. So it sued.

At the time, Apple said the lawsuit was meritless. Today, it countersued. The countersuit pretty much refutes all the original claims made by Nokia.

Strong language accompanied the notice from Apple on this one. In a statement, Bruce Sewell, Apple's General Counsel and senior vice president, said, "Other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours."

Apple pretty much just accused Apple of stealing. Apple also points out that Nokia has publicly admitted that it will copy a good idea, quoting the words of a Nokia executive who spoke at a 2007 Nokia event. That's a pretty nasty thing to say. Apple is alleging that Nokia is violating 13 of its patents.

Here is a list of the patents in question:

• No. 5, 634, 074 : Serial I/O device identifies itself to a computer through a serial interface during power on reset then it is being configured by the computer
• No. 6, 343, 263 B1 : Real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data
• No. 5,915,131 : Method and apparatus for handling I/O requests utilizing separate programming interfaces to access separate I/O services
• No. 5,555,369: Method of creating packages for a pointer-based computer system
• No. 6,239,795 B1: Pattern and color abstraction in a graphical user interface
• No. 5,315,703: Object-oriented notification framework system
• No. 6,189,034 B1: Method and apparatus for dynamic launching of a teleconferencing application upon receipt of a call
• No. 7,469,381, B2: List scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display
• No.RE 39, 486 E: Extensible, replaceable network component system
• No. 5,455,854: Object-oriented telephony system
• No. 7,383,453 B2: Conserving power by reducing voltage supplied to an instruction-processing portion of a processor
• No. 5,848,105: GMSK signal processors for improved communications capacity and quality
• No. 5, 379,431: Boot framework architecture for dynamic staged initial program load