The world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, Nokia, today launched a legal attack on Apple alleging the iPhone infringes 10 of its patents. Specifically, the company claims ownership of technology relating to GSM communications, WLAN and UMTS (3G WCDMA) standards that cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption.

The Finnish firm says it has invested approximately €40 billion ($60 billion) in research and development, and has successfully entered into license agreements with virtually all the leading mobile device vendors – except for Apple. Apparently the companies have been locked in negotiations for quite some time, since all iPhone models dating back to the original introduced in 2007 are allegedly infringing.

Nokia still commands a majority share of the worldwide cell phone market, but has seen its dominance slip in recent years as Apple's iPhone, RIM's BlackBerry and others eat into their customer base. The company reported a loss of $836 million dollars for their most recent quarter. Apple on the other hand reported its "most profitable quarter ever" this Monday with iPhone sales up 7% from the same period a year ago.