Nokia and Samsung have come to an agreement over a license for patents. Under the deal, Samsung will gain access to innovations in video standards covered by Nokia’s patents in exchange for royalty payments that help Nokia recoup the costs of its development efforts.
According to the statement put out by Nokia, the terms of the agreement are confidential between the two parties including the royalties that Samsung will have to pay the Finnish firm. Over the last 20 years, Nokia has invested €129 billion in research and development and now holds 20,000 patent families including 3,500 patent families that are essential for 5G.
Commenting on the deal, President of Nokia Technologies Jenni Lukander said:
“We are delighted to have reached an agreement with Samsung which further validates Nokia’s decades-long investments to R&D and contributions to multimedia and video technology standards.”
Nokia said that it licenses out its innovations on “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” terms. With Nokia doing most of the heavy lifting, other companies can then license the technologies for less than it would cost to do their own research and development.
Another firm that Samsung has licensed patents from is Ericsson. In December, Ericsson filed a lawsuit against the South Korean firm for violating the terms of the arrangement. A similar incident took place in 2012, but after two years, Samsung finally paid Ericsson $650 million, plus a years-worth of royalties.