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Apple gains a nano-SIM patent, uses against Nokia

Teaser
In the long lasting case of the nano-SIMs, Apple has submitted its latest patent

The Ongoing controversy over Apple’s nano-SIM proposals, Nokia has been saying that its rival doesn’t even hold an actual valuable patent which could be used to sweeten the deal and make it look premature in the light if the newly-granted tray design. The patent, filed a long time back in 2007 reads that the ejectable component assemblies in the electronic devices. Also that the trays than can be loaded by using removable modules inserted through openings in the housings of the devices could be used for SIM cards and other identify modules.

Following a status report from the telecoms standard agency, neither of the two sides has conceded much ground for the negotiations this week. ETSI has released some information about the Apple and a Nokia/RIM/Motorola nano-SIM design has now been released. The proposal from Apple was to equip a smaller version of the existing microSIM standard, backward compatible – with an adapter to help it fit into the correct sized dimensions, but Nokia criticized this proposal saying that its potential to jam in older SIM slots would be much more. On this, Motorola suggested the addition of a small notch, but this suggestion was not appraised.

For now, the Nokia/RIM/Motorola proposal stands as, a micro SD card shifting the 4FF standard mandated eight contact points around thereby, breaking the backward-compatibility, and using the benefit of not needing any sort of carrier tray. It was pointed out by the operators that this would take much longer time duration to hit the markets.

Till date, no agreement has been reached. Nokia has now complained that it would question the design designs from Apple not meeting the compliance standards for anti-jamming to plenary.

As promised by Apple, if its rivals agree to use the nano-SIM proposal, it would make all the patents involved freely available for use. To this, Nokia backlashed saying that it could find no standards-essential patents followed by Apple anyway, and that something appeared to have been changed overnight with the latest update of the USPTO.

The Apple patent explains that the electronic devices are provided with an ejectable component assembly which could be flushed with the external surfaces of the housings of the devices, despite all the variations in its manufacture. The patent also mentioned about the ejectable component assemblies including connectors coupled to circuit boards of the devices, and trays that could successfully be loaded with removable modules, inserted through openings in the housings of the devices, and into the connectors for functionally aligning the removable modules with the circuit boards. The ejectable component assemblies might also contain the ejectors coupled to the housings of the devices for ejecting the trays from the connectors and, thus, from the devices themselves.

Apple’s mentioned tray system can only be used for the nano-SIMs but for identity modules used for securing the payment modes and systems. A possible solution for the two could be a double-slot tray that would be able to accommodate both the chips together.

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Pallab Jyotee Hazarika, 2012-03-28 (Update: 2012-05-26)