Nokia, one of the world’s biggest telecoms equipment maker and Lenovo, the world’s biggest PC maker have jointly announced that they have settled their squabble over patents as the terms of the cross-license agreement remain confidential adding that Lenovo will make a net balancing payment to Nokia, the Finnish telecom equipment maker said. Both equally agreed to resolve all pending litigation across all jurisdictions, the companies said.
It could be recalled that Nokia launched its legal battle against Lenovo in 2019 over alleged infringement of 20 video-compression technology patents and had cases in the United States, Brazil and India, in addition to six cases in Germany. Lenovo on the other hand sued Nokia in a court in California.
A Munich court ruled in September that Lenovo infringed one of Nokia’s patents, and it ordered an injunction and a recall of products from retailers. The order was stayed in November by a German appeals court.
“The global accord struck will enable future collaboration between our companies for the benefit of customers worldwide,” said John Mulgrew, chief intellectual property officer of Lenovo. Nokia’s patent portfolio is composed of around 20,000 patent families, including over 3,500 patent families declared essential to the 5G technology standard.
In March, Nokia struck a deal with Samsung to license patents covering its innovations in video standards. Its Scandinavian rival, Ericsson, has also got ongoing patent disputes with Samsung and KPN NV, the largest Dutch telecommunications company.