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.

Nokia's Windows Phone Lumia 925

The Lumia 925, the new terminal on Windows Phone 8 is adorned with an aluminum hull, corrects the defects of its predecessor and once again puts the focus on the picture quality and features associated with the image and video. Nokia does not slow down the pace. Having expanded its portfolio of Smartphones, Lumia the mid entry level at the recent Mobile World Congress, the world number two now reviewing its premium offering with the Lumia 925, introduced as the successor to the 920. It is indeed a good time to Finnish. On the one hand, the strategy around Windows Phone 8 slowly starting to bear fruit. While Nokia is still far from a Samsung or Apple, but it comes from afar. In the first quarter, sales of Lumia jumped 27% over three months to 5.6 million units against 4.4 million between October and December. On the other, it is too strengthen against the top models of competition, namely the Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One or the Sony Xperia Z. With Lumia 925, the manufacturer considers to reach the level of these predators. In fact, this Smartphone corrects the defects of its predecessor, the 920. It is also presented as a "new interpretation" of this model. The 920 is a good device, but it may be a little heavy, a little thick for the European but Lumia 925 is rather thin and light.

Thus, for the first time in this range, the 925 is adorned with an aluminum shell look great instead of colored plastic. It does not acknowledge that 139 grams on the scale for a thickness of 8.5 mm. This is the finest of the 900 range. Also this update aesthetics welcome, Nokia renewed emphasis on functions related to image and video, new anchor communication of the firm developed. "Take pictures, edit them, share them are the most important to consumers today use. The OS also plays a role, but the picture is a selection criterion increasingly critical," suggests Jo Harlow, Vice President and General Manager of Smart Devices, Nokia. And it is true that this communication manufacturer now revolves around this point: the quality of the shots, especially in harsh environments, such as low light.

Specifically, the 925 PureView loads a new lens technology to take pictures and "clearer and sharper, especially in low light conditions" videos. It is also correct some defects Lumia in the past. Meanwhile, Nokia introduced a new mode of called Nokia Smart Camera imaging, which can take ten images at once and edit photos using options such as Best Shot (Best shot), Action Shot (Action Photo) and Motion Focus to obtain the most satisfactory image. Some of its functions are not new, they are found especially in BlackBerry 10, but it is this kind of gadget that Nokia wants to make a difference. It is also worth noting that this feature will be available for update on all smart phones Lumia series.

Nokia also announced a new application called Hipstamatic Oggl that can take, edit and share pictures including Instagram. Recall that the popular Instagram is still not available for Windows Phone 8 (which currently has 145,000 applications). Technical side specification, the Lumia 925 is 4G, it features a 4.5-inch screen (1280x768), a dual heart Snapdragon processor 1.5 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 16 GB of internal memory, 7 GB SkyDrive storage free. The camera sensor displays PureView 8.7 megapixel camera with optical image stabilization (OIS), autofocus, dual LED flash, 1080p HD at 30 frames per second video. Everything is driven by Windows Phone 8. With this new Smartphone, which can eventually qualify as camera phone image is highlighted, Nokia does it amplify the tremor observed in recent months. The intensity of competition does not promote the Finnish but it is now much better emphasized by distributors, "always looking for an alternative" to iOS and Android, said Patrick Chomet, Vodafone.

Welcome Home: Nokia helps move to Windows Phone

Welcome Home to Windows Phone, Mark / Space implements a Microsoft patent: This application supports iPhone users, Android or BlackBerry to Windows Phone.

First, it enables to create a full backup of your existing phone. Contacts and calendars are transferred to your Windows Live account, with the exception of data iCloud, which are not supported. Photos, videos and music are saved in iPhoto and iTunes (on OS X). We can then use the Windows Phone Connector to retrieve them.

The apps are not transferable from one system to another? Big deal! Welcome Home uses the services of search engine applications Quixey to offer the equivalent of your Windows Phone applications iOS, Android or BlackBerry. With a few exceptions, which reveal more delay than Windows Marketplace weaknesses of the application, the suggestions are rather convincing. It is however not present on your iPhone apps that are detected, but those stored in your iTunes library.

It was sponsored by Nokia, and as such is free: it is a tool to promote the Lumia range. Mark / Space has long been a similar tool to move to Android, sold $ 9.95 (€ 7.95).

The "Windows AD" Microsoft in the recovery?

"We are in an era Windows" this little phrase from Steve Ballmer is the perfect summary of his strategy. By refusing once again to use the term "post-PC" Microsoft CEO goes to imply that Windows 8 could be the common denominator of the tablet, computer, television and ... the same smartphone.

The Miracle Control Software

If Apple has successfully demonstrated that its model of total control hardware to software was very viable, other companies were able to do the same: HP webOS, Symbian and Nokia Meego, and RIM QNX. The three companies have a large and enviable had all the means to fight inch by inch with Apple, the makers of tablets and smartphones based on Android and Windows Phone has essentially given up their sovereignty to Google and Microsoft enact only way forward.