Apple and Nokia Settle Patent Dispute

Apple & Nokia – An Agreement Over On-going Patent Dispute

Apple and Nokia had come to an agreement after an on-going patent dispute over the patent of the Finnish company. The two parties had disclosed the agreement in a joint statement recently after five months of suing each other over royalty payments. Apple would be making a sizeable one-off payment as future fees for the utilisation of the technology of Nokia.

 Under the business partnership agreement, Nokia would be providing network infrastructure service to Apple. Apple on its part would resume selling Nokia health product that had been earlier sold under the Withings brand. In December 2016, Apple had pulled Withings products from its online as well as retail stores, days after the company had been sued for patent violation, by Nokia.

The deal estimated by analysts was worth hundreds of millions of pounds to Nokia wherein the shares went up by 7%. It is said that the company had greatly suffered at the hands of the iPhone and had discontinued making handsets after selling its mobile business in 2013 to Microsoft.

Though most of the revenue was from telecoms infrastructure, it intends to boost income from the valuable patents that it seems to hold from its days as the dominant mobile phone company of the world.

Nokia Sued Apple – Violating 32 Patents

Nokia had sued Apple for violating 32 patents used in the iPhone, after a long-running deal had expired last year. Apple on the other hand had sued back calling Nokia a `patent troll’, stating that it had refused to license the technology on a fair basis.

 Recently the company had informed that they had settled all proceedings and had reached a new settlement wherein it will see the healthcare gadgets of Nokia back to Apple stores after they had been detached. The two companies informed that they would work together on enterprises related to healthcare.

Apple is said to pay Nokia an undisclosed amount and additional revenues till the deal tends to stand. Analysts at UBS estimate that Nokia would be receiving between £450m and €550m from Apple.

The Finnish company had acquired Alcatel-Lucent, comprising of its patent rich Bell Labs division in the US that had strengthened its hand heading in negotiations over a new deal. During the negotiations over a new licensing deal, two people conversant with the negotiations had earlier stated that they expected a settlement to be attained in spite of the fractious language.

Meaningful Agreement

The chief legal officer of Nokia, Maria Varsellona had commented that this is a meaningful agreement between Nokia and Apple and it has moved their relationship with Apple from being opponents in court to business partners working for the benefit of the customers.

The Nokia dispute with Apple had been a sign to a deeper patent war between the iPhone maker and Qualcomm which had taken place last year. Jeff William, chief operating officer of Apple had stated that they were pleased with the resolution of their dispute and are looking forward in expanding their business relationship with Nokia.

The agreement is said to culminate the patent dispute which had started last year when Nokia had sued Apple in Germany and the US, charging breach of the 32 patents and the two companies had sued one another in 2009 sticking a licensing agreement in 2011.