The Finish manufacturer's response to Qualcomm's previous announcement

Apr 13, 2007 10:07 GMT  ·  By

Since Qualcomm rejected Nokia's payment offer recently, claiming that the sum is only a fraction of what they agreed on at the negotiations, the Finish manufacturer had to reject something as well, for the sake of keeping the battle alive.

Nokia is now announcing that it doesn't agree with Qualcomm stating it did not use the Finish company's patents and goes on to say that it has for the last fifteen years contributed its technology to industry standards (GSM, WCDMA and CDMA). Now since Qualcomm has products that comply with the industry standards, according to Nokia, it is only logical that it will need to access Nokia's patents covering standardized technologies.

Moreover, Nokia believes that Qualcomm is using no less than one hundred of Nokia's GSM/WCDMA and CDMA2000 essential patents in its chipsets. Since the early 90's, the Finish phone manufacturer has invested over $35 billion in R&D and built one of the wireless industry's strongest and broadest portfolios with over 11,000 patent families.

The two companies are yet to agree on the compensation that's to be paid by Qualcomm for such patents and Nokia believes that its request for royalty payments is based on royalty levels that are fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory.

Bottom line is, Nokia needs Qualcomm and Qualcomm needs Nokia, but for the time being they just can't agree on the sum that each has to pay to the other. Judging by the way that things are going, the two companies will most likely continue to be in cross-license negotiations for a long time from now, until they finally reach an agreement. With more than 200 million units annually, Qualcomm is the largest user in the world of Nokia's technology and patents.