Apple and Nokia settles patent disputes

Apple and Nokia have been fighting over the patents for five months after they had sued each other over royalty payments and the legal battel between the two companies and Apple filed an antitrust lawsuit (PDF) against Nokia, accusing the company of moving "massive numbers of patents" to patent assertion entities and Nokia counter-attacked the following day by accusing Apple of infringing fully 32 of its smartphone patents. According to Nokia, every version of the iPhone, from the iPhone 7 all the way back to the 3GS, infringed Nokia patents.

In response, Nokia filed lawsuits in 11 countries, including Germany and the United States, aiming to defend its intellectual property. Nokia said that Apple should pay for technology used in smartphones, tablets and other devices.

Apple and Nokia has settled a legal dispute on Tuesday over the right of the iPhone maker to use patents and other intellectual property owned by the Finnish telecommunications company. Nokia sued it for violating 32 patents used in the iPhone. Apple sued back, calling Nokia a “patent troll” and saying it had refused to license the technology on a fair basis.

Now, the companies reached to an agreement by settled all of the lawsuits, said, that they had signed a new patent agreement under which Apple will start paying royalties to Nokia from the second quarter of 2017 and they had settled all litigation and reached a new business agreement. It will see Nokia’s healthcare gadgets return to Apple stores after they were removed last year, and the two companies said they might work together on healthcare initiatives.

“This is a mutual agreement between Nokia and Apple,” said Maria Varsellona, Nokia’s chief legal officer. “It moves our relationship with Apple from being adversaries in court to business partners working for the benefit of our customers.”

Apple chief operating officer Jeff Williams said: “We are pleased with this resolution of our dispute and we look forward to expanding our business relationship with Nokia.”

Tags: Apple, Nokia, patent disputes, smartphone patents, iPhone 7, Finnish telecommunications company, Maria Varsellona nokia, Jeff Williams apple