Harish S. Adwant
LG, the South Korean multinational conglomerate, will be introducing smartphones embedded with mobile communication technology developed by Nokia Corp.
On June 15, Nokia and LG entered into a Smartphone Patent License Agreement under which the Finnish giant has agreed to license smartphone patents in relation to 2G, 3G and 4G in exchange of royalty payments, to be settled after express arbitration proceedings.
LG has joined the group of over 60 licensees to Nokia’s patent licensing regime. In addition to that, it is also the first mobile manufacturing corporation to license the smartphone technology after Nokia parted from its Devices and Services Department to Microsoft and concentrated on telecoms network equipment business, while retaining its handset patents.
“We are pleased to welcome LG Electronics to our licensing program. This agreement sets the scene for further collaboration between our companies in future”, said Ramzi Haidamus, President of Nokia Technologies. He also stated that this is a mutually beneficial agreement and any disputes arising between the parties will be resolved with independent arbitration.
The terms of royalty payment shall be subject to commercial arbitration and scheduled to conclude within 1-2 years. “This is becoming a common model. The companies won’t go to the court but instead let an independent party decide,” said Sami Sarkamies, Nordea Corporation Analyst.
Nokia is the license holder of the latest smartphone technology patents in the global smartphone arena as its patent regime is said to have generated royalty payments of worth 578 million Euros (roughly Rs. 4,172 crores) last financial year.
