China Smartphone Maker Oppo Ends Protracted Legal Battle With Nokia, Agrees To Pay 5G Royalties
Chinese smartphone maker Oppo and giant Finnish electronics company Nokia have announced an international patent licensing agreement; This ends a decades-long legal battle over payments for mobile phone patents that has spanned every continent.
Since 2021, both companies have been involved in numerous patent lawsuits in 12 countries, with Oppo becoming the Chinese company's 5G patent portfolio after they were unable to agree on the price of the company's smartphones.
In some markets, court rulings in favor of Nokia prevented Oppo from selling products to domestic customers. In the year After losing a patent infringement case against Nokia in Germany in 2022, Oppo stopped selling smartphones in that country and removed most of the products from its local website.
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Oppo — the world's fourth-largest smartphone brand, according to research firm IDC — announced Wednesday that it has signed a global patent licensing agreement with Nokia covering 5G and other cellular technologies for standard essential patents (SEPs).
SEPs are important to ensure products meet industry standards.
“Under the agreement, both parties will resolve all outstanding disputes in all regions,” Oppo said in a statement.
Nokia said in a statement that Oppo will pay royalties based on the agreed price and will pay royalties to Nokia. The two companies did not disclose licensing fees or other specific terms of the agreement, which they said were "mutually confidential."
Oppo did not comment on the impact of the deal on its German operations.
The Chinese company is still battling legal issues in Germany, where a Munich court ruled in late December that Oppo had infringed Interdigital, a patent held by the US company in wireless and mobile technologies, and granted an injunction against the Chinese company.
The settlement between Nokia and Oppo comes after a Chinese court accepted Oppo's request to set lower royalty rates for Nokia SEPs for 2G-5G technologies.
In a ruling last month, the Chongqing People's Court ruled that a fair license fee should be US$1.151 for a multi-mode 5G phone in developed markets including Europe and US$0.707 in other countries including China.
Oppo is under pressure to resolve patent disputes and increase global sales in the face of fierce competition. According to IDC, the Dongguan company's smartphone shipments in 2016 reduced macroeconomic problems by 9.9% in 2023.
Earlier this month, domestic rival Oppo Honor, which faces US-sanctioned Huawei Technologies, signed a patent licensing agreement with Nokia covering SEPs in cellular technologies, including 5G.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (CCPP), the leading authority on China and Asia for more than a century. To learn more about SCMP, view the SCMP program or visit the SCMP Facebook and Twitter pages. © South China Morning Post Limited 2024. All rights reserved.
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