Licensing Agreement Signed by RIM and Nokia
Licensing Agreement Signed by RIM and Nokia by UCStrategies Staff
The Finnish handset maker, Nokia, stated last week that it and Research In Motion will enter into a new patent licensing agreement; this move will stabalize all litigation between both smartphone makers.
Although the details of the deal were not disclosed, Nokia stated that one-time and ongoing payments will be released from RIM.
The chief intellectual property officer at Nokia, Paul Melin, stated: “We are very pleased to have resolved our patent licensing issues with RIM and reached this new agreement, while maintaining Nokia's ability to protect our unique product differentiation. This agreement demonstrates Nokia's industry-leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market.”
All legal battles being waged between both RIM and Nokia in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. have now been brought to a close.
Nokia stated that a cross-licensing agreement with RIM had been signed in 2003 and this gave RIM the rights to utilize the standard-essential cellular patents of Nokia. RIM sought arbitration with the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce in 2011, presenting the argument that Nokia's WLAN patents should be included in the licensing agreement, something RIM maintained was standard-essential.
However, Nokia counter-argued that royalties should be paid by RIM for the utilization of its WLAN patents. Nokia's argument was supported by the Swedish arbitrator, and the new agreement between the two companies has resulted as a consequence.
The Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM will suffer most from this agreement as it is already struggling financially; it has seen a steady fall in its BlackBerry sales in the last year. RIM is hoping that the launch of the new BlackBerry 10 platform next year will reverse the falling trend.
Nokia is also facing its own struggles; it is failing to lure consumers away from Apple's iPhone and Android-based devices, and is still finding it difficult to attract customers to its Windows Phone-based handsets.
IHS iSuppli, a research firm, comments that the global smartphone market share controlled by Nokia has fallen substantially in the last year. In 2012, Nokia captured a five percent share, whereas in 2011 it had a 16 percent share.
According to Nokia, around $59.4 billion has been invested in R&D in the last 20 years, along with 10,000 varying patent families. (CY) Link