Couple of days after Apple posted yet again impressive revenues and profits mainly banked upon its iPhone popularity and success and just weeks after Nokia posted its first ever loss since 1996, the Finnish handset maker filed a suit in a US Federal Court in Delaware on Thursday accusing Apple of patent infringement.

Terming Apple’s refusal to pay royalty fees as ‘free ride’ Nokia claims that by avoiding the payments Apple was in a position to price its products at lesser rates and thereby the company was effectively gaining market share. “This allows it to obtain market share that it would otherwise not be able to obtain were its products to bear the costs for the patented technology,” says Nokia in its lawsuit. Perhaps Nokia is under the belief that price is the sole differentiator between its range of smartphone offerings and iPhone and features do not matter to the consumer.

“By refusing to agree appropriate terms for Nokia’s intellectual property, Apple is attempting to get a free ride on the back of Nokia’s innovation,” said Ilkka Rahnasto, vice president for legal and intellectual property, Nokia.

Surprisingly Nokia has not asked the Court to impose an injunction into sales of iPhone.

Nokia has sued Apple for 10 patent infringements spanning all iPhone models launched till date. The patents relate to speech coding, security, wireless data transmission to name a few. Nokia says 40 other handset manufacturers pays it for use of these technologies.

Globally Nokia’s move has not gone down well with observers terming it as desperate measure by the firm to keep a check on Apple’s rapid march.

Recently a survey had revealed that Research in Motion and Apple have only a 3 5 share in global handset shipments but a 35 % share in profitability.