Nokia (NOK) announced on Friday Research In Motion (RIMM) has agreed to pay it a “one-time payment and on-going payments” that will end the patent litigation between the two companies in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. The exact details to the patent license agreement weren’t disclosed. Just as the patent wars were beginning to heat up between tech companies, most are now realizing it’s easier to settle and enter into a license agreement than to wage war in the courtroom.
“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, Nokia’s chief intellectual property officer in an official press release. “This agreement demonstrates Nokia’s industry leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market.”
Nokia’s press release follows below.
Nokia and RIM enter into new patent license agreement
RIM payments to Nokia settle all legal actions between the companies
Espoo, Finland – Nokia has entered into a new patent license agreement with Research In Motion. The agreement will result in settlement of all existing patent litigation between the companies and withdrawal of pending actions in the US, UK and Canada related to a recent arbitration tribunal decision.
The financial structure of the agreement includes a one-time payment and on-going payments, all from RIM to Nokia. The specific terms of the agreement are confidential.
“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.”
During the last two decades, Nokia has invested approximately EUR 45 billion in research and development and built the wireless industry’s strongest and broadest IPR portfolio, with around 10,000 patent families. Nokia is a world leader in the development of handheld device and mobile communications technologies, which is also demonstrated by Nokia’s strong patent position.
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
It should be noted that certain statements herein that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, those regarding: A) the expected plans and benefits of our partnership with Microsoft to bring together complementary assets and expertise to form a global mobile ecosystem for smartphones; B) the timing and expected benefits of our new strategies, including expected operational and financial benefits and targets as well as changes in leadership and operational structure; C) the timing of the deliveries of our products and services; D) our ability to innovate, develop, execute and commercialize new technologies, products and services; E) expectations regarding market developments and structural changes; F) expectations and targets regarding our industry volumes, market share, prices, net sales and margins of our products and services; G) expectations and targets regarding our operational priorities and results of operations; H) expectations and targets regarding collaboration and partnering arrangements; I) the outcome of pending and threatened litigation; J) expectations regarding the successful completion of restructurings, investments, acquisitions and divestments on a timely basis and our ability to achieve the financial and operational targets set in connection with any such restructurings, investments, acquisitions and divestments; and K) statements preceded by “believe,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “foresee,” “target,” “estimate,” “designed,” “aim”, “plans,” “intends,” “will” or similar expressions. These statements are based on management’s best assumptions and beliefs in light of the information currently available to it. Because they involve risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from the results that we currently expect. Factors that could cause these differences include, but are not limited to: 1) our success in the smartphone market, including our ability to introduce and bring to market quantities of attractive, competitively priced Nokia products that operate on the Windows Phone operating system that are positively differentiated from our competitors’ products, both outside and within the Windows Phone ecosystem; 2) our ability to make Nokia products that operate on the Windows Phone operating system a competitive choice for consumers, and together with Microsoft, our success in encouraging and supporting a competitive and profitable global ecosystem for Windows Phone products that achieves sufficient scale, value and attractiveness to all market participants; 3) reduced demand for, and net sales of, Nokia products that operate on the Windows Phone 7 operating system in anticipation and availability of Nokia products with the new Windows Phone 8 operating system; 4) the difficulties we experience in having a competitive offering of Symbian devices and maintaining the economic viability of the Symbian smartphone platform during the transition to Windows Phone as our primary smartphone platform; 5) our ability to effectively and timely implement planned changes to our operational structure, including the planned restructuring measures, and to successfully complete the planned investments, acquisitions and divestments in order to improve our operating model and achieve targeted efficiencies and reductions in operating expenses as well as our ability to accurately estimate the related restructuring charges and restructuring related cash outflows; 6) our future sales performance, among other factors, may require us to recognize allowances related to excess component inventory, future purchase commitments and inventory write-offs in our Devices & Services business; 7) our ability to realize a return on our investment in next generation devices, platforms and user experiences; 8) our ability to produce attractive and competitive devices in our Mobile Phones business unit including feature phones and devices with more smartphone-like features such as full touch devices, in a timely and cost efficient manner with differentiated hardware, software, localized services and applications; 9) the intensity of competition in the various markets where we do business and our ability to maintain or improve our market position or respond successfully to changes in the competitive environment; 10) our ability to retain, motivate, develop and recruit appropriately skilled employees; 11) the success of our Location & Commerce strategy, including our ability to establish a successful location-based platform, extend our location-based services across devices and operating systems, provide support for our Devices & Services business and create new sources of revenue from our location-based services and commerce assets; 12) our actual performance in the short-term and long-term could be materially different from our forecasts, which could impact future estimates of recoverable value of our reporting units and may result in impairment charges; 13) our success in collaboration and partnering arrangements with third parties, including Microsoft; 14) our ability to increase our speed of innovation, product development and execution to bring new innovative and competitive mobile products and location-based or other services to the market in a timely manner; 15) our dependence on the development of the mobile and communications industry, including location-based and other services industries, in numerous diverse markets, as well as on general economic conditions globally and regionally; 16) our ability to protect numerous patented standardized or proprietary technologies from third-party infringement or actions to invalidate the intellectual property rights of these technologies; 17) our ability to maintain and leverage our traditional strengths in the mobile product market if we are unable to retain the loyalty of our mobile operator and distributor customers and consumers as a result of the implementation of our strategies or other factors; 18) the success, financial condition and performance of our suppliers, collaboration partners and customers; 19) our ability to manage efficiently our manufacturing and logistics, as well as to ensure the quality, safety, security and timely delivery of our products and services; 20) our ability to source sufficient amounts of fully functional quality components, sub-assemblies, software and services on a timely basis without interruption and on favorable terms; 21) our ability to manage our inventory and timely adapt our supply to meet changing demands for our products; 22) any actual or even alleged defects or other quality, safety and security issues in our products; 23) the impact of a cybersecurity breach or other factors leading to any actual or alleged loss, improper disclosure or leakage of any personal or consumer data collected by us or our partners or subcontractors, made available to us or stored in or through our products; 24) our ability to successfully manage the pricing of our products and costs related to our products and operations; 25) exchange rate fluctuations, including, in particular, fluctuations between the euro, which is our reporting currency, and the US dollar, the Japanese yen and the Chinese yuan, as well as certain other currencies; 26) our ability to protect the technologies, which we or others develop or that we license, from claims that we have infringed third parties’ intellectual property rights, as well as our unrestricted use on commercially acceptable terms of certain technologies in our products and services; 27) the impact of economic, political, regulatory or other developments on our sales, manufacturing facilities and assets located in emerging market countries; 28) the impact of changes in government policies, trade policies, laws or regulations where our assets are located and where we do business; 29) the potential complex tax issues and obligations we may incur to pay additional taxes in the various jurisdictions in which we do business and our actual or anticipated performance, among other factors, could result in allowances related to deferred tax assets; 30) any disruption to information technology systems and networks that our operations rely on; 31) unfavorable outcome of litigations; 32) allegations of possible health risks from electromagnetic fields generated by base stations and mobile products and lawsuits related to them, regardless of merit; 33) Nokia Siemens Networks ability to implement its new strategy and restructuring plan effectively and in a timely manner to improve its overall competitiveness and profitability; 34) Nokia Siemens Networks’ success in the telecommunications infrastructure services market and Nokia Siemens Networks’ ability to effectively and profitably adapt its business and operations in a timely manner to the increasingly diverse service needs of its customers; 35) Nokia Siemens Networks’ ability to maintain or improve its market position or respond successfully to changes in the competitive environment; 36) Nokia Siemens Networks’ liquidity and its ability to meet its working capital requirements; 37) Nokia Siemens Networks’ ability to timely introduce new competitive products, services, upgrades and technologies; 38) Nokia Siemens Networks’ ability to execute successfully its strategy for the acquired Motorola Solutions wireless network infrastructure assets; 39) developments under large, multi-year contracts or in relation to major customers in the networks infrastructure and related services business; 40) the management of our customer financing exposure, particularly in the networks infrastructure and related services business; 41) whether ongoing or any additional governmental investigations into alleged violations of law by some former employees of Siemens may involve and affect the carrier-related assets and employees transferred by Siemens to Nokia Siemens Networks; and 42) any impairment of Nokia Siemens Networks customer relationships resulting from ongoing or any additional governmental investigations involving the Siemens carrier-related operations transferred to Nokia Siemens Networks, as well as the risk factors specified on pages 13-47 of Nokia’s annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2011 under Item 3D. “Risk Factors.” Other unknown or unpredictable factors or underlying assumptions subsequently proving to be incorrect could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Nokia does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except to the extent legally required.About Nokia
Nokia is a global leader in mobile communications whose products have become an integral part of the lives of people around the world. Every day, more than 1.3 billion people use their Nokia to capture and share experiences, access information, find their way or simply to speak to one another. Nokia’s technological and design innovations have made its brand one of the most recognized in the world. For more information, visit http://www.nokia.com/about-nokia.
