Nokia has announced that it has inked a new patent licensing deal with Research in Motion to end a lawsuit it filed over wi-fi technology, in return for payments. The agreement includes a "one-time payment and on-going payments, all from RIM to Nokia," Nokia said, however, it did not disclose "confidential" terms.
According to the new agreement, all existing patent litigations between the companies will come to an end and it will also result in the withdrawal of pending actions in the U.S., UK and Canada related to a recent arbitration tribunal decision. "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," said Paul Melin, Chief Intellectual Property Officer at Nokia. "This agreement demonstrates Nokia's industry leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market."
Nokia had sought to block the sale of some Blackberry devices after a Swedish court ruled that RIM was not entitled to sell products using wireless LAN patents without paying Nokia royalties. Nokia, a long-time mobile phone market leader, said it has invested about 45 billion euros in research and development, building a portfolio of around 10,000 patent families.
Nokia is ranked among the top patent holders in the industry along with Qualcomm and Ericsson. The Finnish mobile phone maker has earned around 500 million euros a year from patent royalties in key areas of mobile telephony, a Reuters report said. Market analysts believe Nokia's settlement with Apple in June 2011 was worth hundreds of millions of euros, but said the RIM agreement was likely worth much less because of lower BlackBerry sales.
