Apple Paid Nokia $2B to Settle Patent Dispute

Apple Scales of Justice

The recent settlement in Apple and Nokia’s patent licensing fight cost the iPhone maker US$2 billion. Nokia spilled the beans on the settlement price tag during its quarterly earnings call this week.

Apple Scales of Justice
Nokia patent licensing settlement cost Apple $2 billion

Nokia said during its earnings report, “We got a substantial upfront cash payment of €1.7 billion from Apple, strengthening further our cash position.”

The company elaborated on the settlement terms saying,

Instead of a simple patent licensing agreement, we have agreed on a more extensive business collaboration with Apple, providing potential for a meaningful uplift in our IP routing, optical networks and digital health business units over time. Hence, the value of the agreement will be reflected partly as patent licensing net sales in Nokia Technologies, and partly as net sales in other Nokia business groups.

The two companies filed lawsuits against each other last December after failing to reach an agreement on patent licensing payments. Nokia said it spent years trying to reach an agreement, while Apple said Nokia was asking for payments that were too high.

More than 30 patents were involved in the lawsuits covering technologies in Apple’s mobile devices going back as far as the iPhone 3GS. Apple had been paying licensing fees for Nokia’s patents, but failed to reach a new agreement when the earlier contract expired.

They reached a settlement agreement in May, but didn’t disclose how much money Apple was handing over. At the Time Apple chief operating officer Jeff Williams said, “We are pleased with this resolution of our dispute and we look forward to expanding our business relationship with Nokia.”

[Thanks to Nokiamob.net for the heads up]

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.