Nokia dropped the case against Apple’s patent infringement. Nokia said that Apple only filed its lawsuit against Nokia to “divert attention away from free-riding off of Nokia’s intellectual property.” At first, Nokia blamed Apple of infringing on ten of its patents involving GSM, UMTS (3G), and WiFi connectivity. Apple countersued, and on February 22nd, the International Trade Commission (ITC) began its investigation into Apple’s protest. Notwithstanding claim that Nokia has asked a judge to drop the case, Nokia and Apple are requesting a U.S. court hearing in 2012.

Nokia and Skype has launched Skype for Symbian in Nokia’s Ovi Store. The application requires Symbian^1, which means it’s compatible with the Nokia N97, N9 mini, X6, 5800XpressMusic, 5530, E72, E71, E90, E63, E66, E51, N96, N95, N95 8GB, N85, N82, N81, N81 8GB, N79, N78, 6220 classic, 6210 Navigator, and the 5320.

Skype says it will soon make the application available to other Symbian phones, like Sony Ericsson devices.

Nokia publicized the Symbian S60 3rd Edition powered C5 smartphone, a device with a focus on social networking and sharing. The 12.3mm x 46mm x 112mm (0.48in x 1.81in x 4.4in) C5 has a 2.2-inch 320 x 240 pixel display, a 1050mAh battery, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. It allows you view your social networks, like Facebook and MySpace, from the homescreen. It also comes with Ovi Mail, Nokia Messaging, a 3.2 megapixel Priced at $182, the C5 will be available in select markets during the second quarter of 2010..

Nokia launched the 6303i classic, a candy-bar slider phone that is an upgraded version of the Nokia 6303 classic which was announced last January. The handset provides longer battery performance of up to 8 hours of talk time or 30 hours of music playback. It features an FM radio, a 3.2 megapixel camera with dual LED flash, and a microSD card slot that supports up to 8GB of storage. The Nokia 6303i classic focuses on social messaging supported by Nokia Messaging. It comes in silver or khaki gold, and is available in selected countries at $143 U.S.

Late last month, since Nokia has publicized that the Ovi Maps with Navigation would be free for anyone with a supported handset, over 1.4 million downloads of the application has been recorded, with the 1 millionth download passed in the first week. Nokia sees the large number of users as a growing market for third party location-based services developers. Countries including China, Italy, U.K., Germany, and Spain were the top 5 among those who have downloaded the app. Reports have it that the downloads from the aforementioned countries were done mainly for units like Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, the N97 mini, N97, 5230, and the E72.