Yesterday we reported on Nokia's lawsuit against Apple, in which they claim the iPhone is infringing on 10 of the company's patents relating to GSM, UMTS and WLAN technologies.

Analysts have now had a chance to crunch the numbers and estimate that Apple could face shelling out between $200 million and $1 billion to satisfy the suit if successful — and go on to say that Nokia has a pretty good case. They note that the major existing players in the mobile industry (including Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson and Qualcomm) have a lot of intellectual property locked up already, making licensing costs a "significant barrier for late entrants" into the cellular space like Apple. Analyst Ben Wood was quoted as saying, "It is almost inconceivable that someone can produce a mobile phone without using Nokia patented technologies."

Nokia says they've been attempting to work out a licensing deal with Apple for some time, but their offers have been continually rejected — leading to the suit they filed in a U.S. District Court yesterday.

What do you think: will Apple be forced to pay the Finnish piper? Or will Apple wriggle its way out of Nokia's grasp?