Samsung is gonna have to start coughing up money to Nokia

Marketwatch

January 30, 2024

Nokia may have (temporarily) pulled out of the handset market, but the company has spent more than $50 billion on research and development over the last two decades to build a massive patent portfolio, and it’s time to start collecting those licensing fees. On Monday morning, the company announced that it will generate at least $1.4 billion in revenue from its patents over the next three years, much of which will come from Samsung thanks to a recent arbitration panel ruling relating to a licensing agreement the two companies made back in 2013. Unfortunately, this news wasn’t enough to satisfy investors, who expected Nokia’s patents to be able to generate more revenue than that, and its shares fell by 10% as a result of the news.

Nokia Corp. expects to gain more than a billion dollars in cash from its intellectual-property portfolio in the next three years, including the proceeds from a patent pact with Samsung Electronics Co. signed more than two years ago. The Finnish telecom-equipment maker said on Monday that an arbitration panel has ruled on how much the South Korean company has to pay as part of their 2013 licensing agreement, but didn’t disclose the sum itself. Nokia said that it expects to receive at least EUR1.3 billion ($1.4 billion) in cash between 2016 and 2018 related to settled and continuing arbitration regarding its intellectual property, including the Samsung award. “The use of independent arbitration to resolve differences in patent cases is a recognized best practice, and we welcome the additional compensation payable to Nokia under the extended agreement,” said Nokia Technologies President Ramzi Haidamus. The Finnish and South Korean companies agreed in November 2013 to a new licensing agreement, extending a previous deal through 2018 that allows them to use each other’s patents, thereby lessening the likelihood of lawsuits and related costs. Nokia, which agreed to sell its mobile handset business to Microsoft Corp. in 2013, was set to receive more compensation from the South Korean company than it received from the previous deal, but the companies agreed that the exact sum would be decided by arbitration.