Nokia signs 5G patent deal with vivo

Nokia has signed a lot of 5G patent agreements in the last year. The Finnish company recent convinced Oppo that it’s better to make use of technology that’s patented by other companies by simply paying for it.

Today, Nokia is signing yet another 5G patent agreement, this time with another Chinese smartphone maker, vivo. Granted, this is a multi-year cross-license agreement that will benefit both companies, it’s vivo that gains on the short run since it can now return to the German market after losing the lawsuit filed by Nokia.

The announcement mentions that the new deal “resolved all pending patent litigations between the parties, in all jurisdictions.” However, the terms of the agreement remain confidential, so there’s not much we can add to this.

With this licensing agreement, Nokia “has now almost completed its smartphone license renewal cycle,” the company notes. The Finnish giant signed similar agreements with other big smartphone companies like Samsung, Honor, Huawei, Oppo, and even Apple.

“This is the sixth major smartphone patent license agreement we have signed in the past thirteen months, and we have now almost completed our smartphone license renewal cycle. Together these licensing agreements demonstrate Nokia’s significant contribution to developing key technologies relied upon by the entire smartphone industry and they will provide long-term stability to our licensing business for years to come,” said Jenni Lukander, President of Nokia Technologies.

Nokia expects its intellectual property licensing business to generate around €1.4 billion ($1.5 billion) in the mid-term, which isn't that much considering that the company invested around €150 billion in R&D.