It seems that Nokia reads gadget blogs. Our story on the Nokia N80-3's FCC approval was widely linked (thanks guys! love you!) but only by blog-ish media and forums. Even so, Nokia wrote to the FCC on the day after it appeared to request for short term (45 day) confidentiality.
The FCC appears to have ...
It seems that Nokia reads gadget blogs. Our story on the Nokia N80-3's FCC approval was widely linked (thanks guys! love you!) but only by blog-ish media and forums. Even so, Nokia wrote to the FCC on the day after it appeared to request for short term (45 day) confidentiality.
The FCC appears to have allowed it, because if you look at the Nokia N80-3's FCC approval page now, you will see that some of the the items which were previously available have now been removed.
Our opinion is that the FCC should not have granted this request.We think that Nokia is a great company, but this is nothing to do with that. The fact is that the supposedly confidential information, which Nokia claimed on 25th November "was not yet released to the public and the public disclosure of which might be harmful to the applicant, had in fact been released to the public via the FCC website prior to 25th November.
In addition, it is a requirement of the short term confidentiality rules that if an applicant engages in public marketing activities or otherwise publicizes a device for which temporary confidential treatment has been granted, the applicant must contemperaneously notify the FCC issuing the equipment authorization so that the subject exhibits may be placed in the public database immediately.
The Nokia N80-3 has been publically marketed... no?
A possible further argument Nokia might make is that we are being hypocritical, having removed prototype pictures of the Nokia N71 after we received a request from Nokia's lawyers. The difference in that case was that we did not have any mandate to publish any such information, contrary to the FCC which is required by law to publish, for public consumption, specific details of approved devices. Therefore, our publication of the prototype pictures would not serve to make the information non-confidential (although we have no knowledge of whether they were in fact secret), but the FCC's publication does.
We don't know why the FCC allowed it - perhaps it was simply an oversight - but in any case we don't think this will affect the broader picture. It is not difficult for Nokia to use the short term confidentiality effectively: it did so when applying for the Nokia N71 to be FCC approved.
It's just the principle of the matter.
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For a brief overview of what short term confidentiality means, and the actual FCC notice allowing for requests of short term confidentiality, look at this PDF produced by AmericanTCB. Nokia's request letter is reproduced below.
