Nokia signs 5G patent licence deal with major tech corp
Cross-licence agreement marks success for Finnish firm which faces renewal issues elsewhere | Continues company’s licensing growth strategy.
Nokia has signed a new cross-license patent agreement with Samsung covering 5G technology.
According to the deal, announced today, January 23, Samsung will make royalty payments for a multi-year period for using Nokia’s inventions in 5G and other technologies.
The specific terms are confidential, but the previous patent agreement between the two firms lasted for four years and expired in December 2022. This new deal came into force on the first day of this year.
President of Nokia Technologies Jenni Lukander said: “Samsung is a leader in the smartphone industry, and we are delighted to have reached an amicable agreement with them.
“The agreement gives both companies the freedom to innovate, and reflects the strength of Nokia’s patent portfolio, decades-long investments in R&D and contributions to cellular standards and other technologies.”
Nokia’s patent portfolio is composed of around 20,000 patent families including 4,500 that are deemed essential to 5G. Companies can license and use the firm’s inventions on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. Nokia has a separate agreement with Samsung over the use of its video compression technology.
Licence renewals
Florian Mueller of Foss Patents noted that in September last year, Nokia’s Lukander gave a presentation to investors in which she iterated the importance of the firm’s licensing business to its growth strategy. She also said that Nokia was “facing the need to renew various license agreements in the fiscal quarters ahead”.
While an agreement has been reached successfully with Samsung, elsewhere Nokia is mired in litigation over its licenses.
Just last week, a UK court ruled that Oppo had infringed one of Nokia’s standard-essential parents (SEPs) through 4G and 5G functionality in its mobile phones. It is the first of three SEP trials between Oppo and Nokia in the UK, and follows a series of clashes in court between the two smartphone giants around the world including in Germany, India and the Netherlands.
Commenting on the outcome of the case, Nokia said: “Oppo has been unwilling to renew its licence on fair and reasonable terms and made no royalty payments to Nokia for 18 months. Several courts in Europe have found Oppo has infringed Nokia’s patented technologies in its smartphones and confirmed that Nokia has acted fairly.”
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