Nokia wins over Qualcomm in licensing dispute

U.S. judge ruled Nokia, the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, doesn't infringe Qualcomm's patents. Now Nokia may have gained an edge in its technology licensing dispute with Qualcomm Inc.

Photo: Nokia wins over Qualcomm in licensing dispute

Administrative Law Judge Paul Luckern in New York rejected Qualcomm claims that Nokia infringed patents for a technology that prevents dropped calls. He also said one of the three patents is invalid. His decision is subject to review by the six-member U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington.

The ITC decision may spur progress in negotiations to replace a licensing agreement, which expired eight months ago. Nokia says Qualcomm patents cover less of the technology used in the newest phones, warranting a smaller payment. Qualcomm gets about three-quarters of its profit from licensing fees, Bloomberg reports.

Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation, focused on the key growth areas of wired and wireless telecommunications. Nokia is currently the world's largest manufacturer of mobile telephones, with a global device market share of approximately 39% in Q3 of 2007 Nokia produces mobile phones for every major market segment and protocol, including GSM, CDMA, and W-CDMA. The corporation also produces telecommunications network equipment for applications such as mobile and fixed-line voice telephony, ISDN, broadband access, voice over IP, and wireless LAN.

Qualcomm is a wireless telecommunications research and development company based in San Diego, California. Qualcomm is the inventor of CDMAone (IS-95), CDMA 2000, and CDMA 1xEV-DO, which are wireless cellular standards used for communications. The company also owns significant number of key patents on the widely adopted 3G technology, W-CDMA. The license streams from the patents on these inventions, and related products are a major component of Qualcomm's business.

As Pravda.Ru previously reported Nokia Corp. will buy digital mapmaker Navteq Corp. for $8.1 billion (5.69 billion EUR).

The deal announced Monday, one of Nokia's biggest ever, brings the Finnish company's ample financial resources to a location-based services industry fast accelerating toward mainstream use as consumers embrace the growing variety of applications for global positioning systems.

Analysts said it also headed off a potential similar move by a company such as Google Inc. or Garmin Ltd. to snatch away Chicago-based Navteq, one of the few remaining providers of mapping data with the pending acquisition of rival Tele Atlas NV by TomTom NV.

"This kind of cements Nokia's push into navigation," said Mark McKechnie, an American Technology Research analyst. "As the leader in the cell-phone business, they want to see more and more functionality get into the handset - taking the turn-by-turn directions, for example, and moving them from high-priced car applications to applications that fit in your pocket."

Source: agencies