You tend to go for FCC certification once you've made the decision to sell/distribute in the the North American market. Apparently that's not the case yet for for Jolla.

I truly doubt if a phone that can be sold in the EU would have to worry about patent issues in the US/Canada market - I can't think of any phone that's not done that that originated in the EU first, perhaps a couple of Chinese phones quickly come to mind.

But as it stands, it's all speculation and I'm willing to bet you're more right than I on this. I just have to question the somewhat lack of communication to non-EU backers while soliciting worldwide attention. A staged release would have made sense if they didn't make it sound like they were ready to go worldwide as noted per their worldwide solicitation and pre-purchase agendas.

The question does remain; will the enthusiasm remain? This feels too close to the Nokia N9 release. Awesome product from Finland deemed too good to be released in a market where I unfortunately live and no clear communication about when/if it will arrive.

I'm personally not going to jump through the same hoops I had to for the N9 only to be dumped a year later by that other Finnish company.

But that's me. I'm not the average consumer. But I'm still in the dark.