APPLE to pay NOKIA some cash for every iPhone sold in the market to settle a lawsuit!

Apple has a kind of good bad-boy image when it comes to patent lawsuits I guess. They force it on the others and receive a few punches in and to return them bravely (!!!). Way to go Apple.

According to Nokia’s press release today (June 14, 2011), Apple is going to pay Nokia some (undisclosed) amount behind every iPhone sold in the market to settle a long running, unresolved patent lawsuit which Nokia implied on Apple in 2009.

The agreement will result in and as settlement of, all the patent lawsuits between these two mobile manufacturers including that the both parties withdraw any (and all) complaints made to the US Trade Commission.

This agreement consists of, one time payment in addition to the ongoing royalty payments which Apple will pay Nokia. The terms of such contract are confidential.

This ensures & rewards Nokia a great amount of recurring income for their time – efforts – money they spent on research and development and to get all these patents registered on their name. Way to go Nokia.

“We are very pleased to have Apple join the growing number of Nokia licensees,” said Stephen Elop, president and chief executive officer of Nokia. “This settlement demonstrates Nokia’s industry leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market.”

During the last two decades, Nokia has invested approximately EUR 43 billion in research and development and built one of the wireless industry’s strongest and broadest IPR portfolios, with over 10,000 patent families. Nokia is a world leader in the development of handheld device and mobile communications technologies, which is also demonstrated by Nokia’s strong patent position.

This agreement is expected to have a positive financial impact on Nokia’s recently revised outlook for the second quarter 2011 of around break-even non-IFRS operating margin for Devices & Services.

Read Further

I can’t seem to take things as they really look upfront (Is that a problem?). I always liked the timing of lawsuits forced by Apple on other companies like they did to Samsung recently and also liked the timing of settlements Apple agree upon.

My Take

Recently as we know, Apple announced iOS 5 with more than 200 new features and released Beta 1 for developers. I also covered a list of almost 200 features (to cover entire list) of this new upcoming mobile operating system. For some reason, Apple has not incorporated all the new features in Beta 1 and that’s why the list is incomplete.

Looking at the timing of this settlement, I think there could be plenty of new features that Apple might reveal in next Beta versions of iOS 5 and which could be the reason Apple agreed to pay royalties to Nokia.

By doing this, Apple can still use those features in iPhone for which the patents are owned by Nokia. Could it be like that?

Wow . . .

What do you think?

Do share