To be honest, I’m surprised it took this long. But now it seems our government here in the U.S. has finally decided to take action and attempt to stop a merger that should not take place anyway.

That’s right, the government has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to block AT&T’s proposed $39 Billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA. According to the complaint, such a deal would “substantially lessen competition” in the U.S. wireless market. Bloomberg reports that the complaint was filed with the U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday, and the government is asking for a declaration that the proposed merger would violate U.S. antitrust laws.

“AT&T’s elimination of T-Mobile as an independent, low- priced rival would remove a significant competitive force from the market,” the U.S. said in its filing. AT&T has argued that it needs T-Mobile’s spectrum in order to improve service quality and cover the majority of the U.S. population with 4G LTE service.

Well, I can understand them wanting to improve service quality. However, competition is good and as long as T-Mobile is around, AT&T will have to work that much harder. That won’t hurt them one bit. In fact, it might just help them.

Today, French telecom giant Nokia filed suit in U.S. District Court against Apple alleging copyright infringement on 10 of its technology patents. The company says the patents “relate to technologies fundamental to making devices,” that are compatible with GSM, UMTS, or 3G WCDMA, and wireless LAN technologies.

The claims involve wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption technologies. Nokia says Apple has been in violation of these patents since the iPhone launched in 2007. Additionally, Nokia says it has invested more than $60 Billion in research and development, but says Apple has not agreed to appropriate licensing terms for these technologies.

Nokia, which recently posted a loss of $836 Million, parhaps sees Apple as a worthy target, especially in light of Apple’s recently reported 7% increase in iPhone sales. I’m not saying that Nokia is suing Apple simply for economic reasons, but seeing as one company is going down while another is going up, the timing sure is interesting.

No matter what the relative merits of Nokia’s suit are, sit back and settle in for many long years of litigation. Apple is not a company that goes quietly and if they expect to get a dime out of Cupertino, Nokia had better be prepared to fight.