Nokia and Qualcomm today announced that they have entered into
a new agreement covering various standards including GSM, EDGE,
CDMA, WCDMA, HSDPA, OFDM, WiMax, LTE and other technologies.
The agreement will result in settlement of all litigation
between the companies, including the withdrawal by Nokia of its
complaint to the European Commission.
The deal, which ends all legal cases between the two firms,
covers the world's most widely used mobile phone technologies
and some key emerging ones.
Under the terms of the new 15 year agreement, Nokia has been
granted a license under all Qualcomm's patents for use in
Nokia's mobile devices and Nokia Siemens Networks
infrastructure equipment. Further, Nokia has agreed not to use
any of its patents directly against Qualcomm, enabling Qualcomm
to integrate Nokia's technology into Qualcomm's chipsets. The
financial structure of the settlement includes an up-front
payment and on-going royalties payable to Qualcomm. Nokia has
agreed to assign ownership of a number of patents to Qualcomm,
including patents declared as essential to WCDMA, GSM and
OFDMA. The specific terms are confidential.
"We believe that this agreement is positive for the industry,
enabling the market to benefit from innovation and new
technologies," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia
Corporation. "The positive financial impact of this agreement
is within Nokia's original expectations and fully reflects our
leading intellectual property and market positions."
"I'm very pleased that we have come to this important
agreement." said Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm. "The terms of
the new license agreement, including the financial and other
value provided to Qualcomm, reflect our strong intellectual
property position across many current and future generation
technologies. This agreement paves the way for enhanced
opportunities between the companies in a number of areas."
Qualcomm chip customers include Samsung Electronics and LG
Electronics. Rivals include Texas Instruments, Broadcom Corp
and Infineon Technologies AG.