Nokia, RIM Settle Patent Lawsuit

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Nokia and RIM have announced that they have settled their dispute over patents owned by Nokia. RIM has agreed to make licensing payments to the Finnish phone manufacturer.

ZDNet’s Charlie Osborne reported, “Nokia has announced that it has entered a new patent licensing deal with Research in Motion. The Finnish firm will accept a one-time payment scheduled for Q4 and on-going payments from Canadian BlackBerry maker RIM, although the specific terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.”

PCMag’s Chloe Albanesius noted, “The case dates back to 2003, when Nokia and RIM first signed a patent deal. That agreement was amended and renewed in 2008. Last year, however, RIM filed a request for arbitration with the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, arguing that the license extended beyond cellular essentials, Nokia said. The chamber appointed an arbitration tribunal, which conducted a nine-day hearing in September. According to a recent Nokia court filing, the tribunal ‘found unanimously for Nokia on all but one of its requests for declaratory relief, and denied all but one of RIM’s requests for declaratory relief. The tribunal also required RIM to bear the costs of the arbitration and compensate Nokia for the majority of its legal fees.'”

According to the Associated Press, “Nokia is among leading patent holders in the wireless industry. It has already received a $565 million royalty payment from Apple Inc. to settle long-standing patent disputes and filed claims in the United States and Germany alleging that products from HTC Corp. and Viewsonic Corp. infringe a number of its patents. The company says it has invested €45 billion ($60 billion) during the last 20 years in research and development and has one of the wireless industry’s largest IPR portfolios claiming some 10,000 patent families.”

Reuters quoted Nokia’s Paul Melin, who said, “This agreement demonstrates Nokia’s industry leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market.”