Nokia has sided with Apple in an effort to help the Cupertino company in its fight against Samsung. The Finnish firm filed an amicus brief on behalf of Apple in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Monday, asking the court to permit permanent injunctions on the sale of Samsung smartphones that were found guilty of infringing Apple’s patents.

Apple was awarded $1.05 billion in damages from Samsung back in August 2012, but the case did not stop there. Samsung has been fighting the jury verdict ever since, and last week, Apple’s damages were slashed by $450.5 million by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh.

Koh also denied Apple a permanent injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy devices back in December, which would have forced the Korean electronics giant to stop selling a number of its most popular smartphones.

But Nokia has stepped up and given Apple its support. The brief is currently under seal, but Nokia has provided a summary, in which the company’s attorney, Keith Broyles, argues that Apple should be allowed to ban Samsung devices from the market.

Broyles said, according to Reuters, that Koh “erred by ruling that Apple must establish a ‘causal nexus’ between its patented feature and the demand for its phones in order to secure a permanent injunction.”

Such a rule “could cause wide-ranging damage to the United States patent protection landscape,” Nokia added.

The deadline for amicus fillings on behalf of Apple was February 19, but Nokia was granted a 14-day extension by the Federal Circuit. It is the only company that has filed an amicus brief on behalf of Apple.

Nokia’s support of Apple has come as a surprise to most, given that the two companies are rivals when it comes to selling smartphones. But according to Broyles, Nokia’s interest is to advocate patent rights and foster innovation.

“Nokia has recently been involved in numerous U.S. patent lawsuits, as both a plaintiff and defendant,” Broyles wrote. “Nokia is thus both a significant patent owner that might seek an injunction to protect its patent rights, and a manufacturer in an industry in which patent owners routinely issue threats of injunctions for patent infringement.”

Apple asked the Federal Circuit to fast-track its appeal, but the court has rejected that request and assigned the case to a judging panel.

• SourceReuters