Nokia, Lenovo settle patent disputes

Nokia and Lenovo ended all ongoing patent cross licensing litigation, with an agreement involving the Chinese company making an undisclosed payment to the Finnish vendor.

In a statement, Nokia announced the agreement involves a confidential payment and resolves all pending patent litigation and other proceedings between the two parties in all jurisdictions.

Nokia launched legal action against Lenovo in 2019 over alleged infringements of 20 patents, with cases in the US, Brazil, India, and six in Germany.

One of the most recent German cases involved Nokia attempting to block the sale of Lenovo products in the country over a violation of a video encoding patent used in smartphones and computers.

Constructive spirit
Jenni Lukander, president of Nokia Technologies, said the agreement with Lenovo reflected “Nokia’s decades-long investments in R&D and contributions to cellular and multimedia standards”.

“We appreciate, and very much respect, the constructive spirit Lenovo brought to our negotiations and look forward to working together to bring further innovation to their users around the world,” she added.

Nokia said it had invested more than €129 billion in R&D over two decades, accumulating 20,000 patents, 3,500 of which were essential to 5G.

The vendor is no stranger to patent rows. It initiated legal action against Apple in 2016, which ended in a multi-year patent licence agreement with the iPhone maker a year later.

In 2020, it also scored a win against car maker Daimler.

CREDIT