Nokia sells 500 patents to Vringo for $22 million

Nokia has received $22 million dollars from Vringo in exchange for 500 patents. Some of the intellectual property involved covers 2G, 3G and 4G technology. Vringo owns a portfolio of mobile patents which it licenses to tech companies. Of the 500 patents, 109 of them were issued in the United States. As part of the deal, Nokia will continue to use the patents covered by the transaction on a "non-exclusive" basis. Once the revenue generated by the patents exceeds $22 million, Nokia will be entitled to receive a 35% share of the dollars generated by the IP. The $22 million will be paid to Nokia on or before September 14th, and to fund the deal Vringo sold off 9.6 million of its shares.

The Finnish handset manufacturer is currently in the midst of a restructuring after reporting a $1 billion operating loss for the second quarter and has already shed some assets not vital to the success of the company. For example, luxury handset producer Vertu was sold in June, and on Thursday morning, Nokia's Qt software business was sold to Digia.

The goal with these sales is to keep the company on its feet until Windows Phone 8 models are launched. Nokia hopes the new build of Microsoft's mobile OS will allow it to compete with the Apple iPhone and Android models.

With patent trials all over the news these days, Nokia had a clause inserted in the contract that allows them to re-acquire the patents for a nominal amount should Vringo take Nokia or its affiliates to court over these specific patents. Nicely played, Nokia. Nicely played.

source: TheNextWeb via SlashGear