Google and Apple are the most valuable companies in the world, and undoubted winners from the smartphone boom. In their wake lies Nokia’s handset business, which was sold to Microsoft and later wound down.

But, when it comes to defending themselves against the arsenal of patents Nokia built up in its years at the top, the US tech heavyweights want the world to view them as victims of unfair and anti-competitive behaviour.

That rather delicious irony emerged this week, as Apple filed a private antitrust suit against two companies that have acted as enforcers of Nokia’s patent portfolio. Apple claimed that Nokia was taking advantage of a legal system that is ripe for abuse by carving up its patent holdings and passing them on to specialist firms. In the heated rhetoric of the intellectual property industry, Nokia had become that most detested of animals: a patent “troll”.