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Nokia vs Vivo: Patent Dispute and Settlement Negotiation
2023/4/17 16:46:52

Nokia issued a statement in response to the recent patent litigation with Chinese mobile phone manufacturers, hoping to reach a license with Chinese mobile phone manufacturers "on fair terms". A week ago, the German District Court in Mannheim ruled that Vivo infringed three of Nokia's cellular standard-essential patents, and the court granted Nokia an injunction against Vivo.

 

In response to the judgment and Nokia's statement, Vivo responded on its German official website: "We are disappointed by the judgment of the District Court of Mannheim, Germany, and are ready to suspend the sale and promotion of the products involved through Vivo's official German channels if necessary. We are preparing to appeal this decision and will review other options. In the meantime, we will continue to negotiate with Nokia to resolve this matter on 'FRAND' terms."

 

A few days ago, Nokia issued a statement in response to the recent patent litigation with Chinese mobile phone manufacturers, hoping to reach a license with Chinese mobile phone manufacturers "on fair terms". A week ago, Germany's Mannheim District Court ruled that Vivo had infringed Nokia's three cellular standard-essential patents, and the court granted Nokia an injunction against Vivo.

 

In response to the judgment and Nokia's statement, Vivo responded on its German official website: "We are disappointed by the judgment of the German District Court in Mannheim, Germany, and are ready to suspend the sale and promotion of the products involved through Vivo German official channels if necessary." We are preparing to appeal the decision and will review other options. In the meantime, we will continue to negotiate with Nokia to resolve the matter on 'FRAND' terms." ”

 

Vivo and Nokia's litigation battle

The litigation battle between Nokia and Vivo began in March 2022 because the two parties did not agree on patent licensing, and then Nokia filed multiple lawsuits against Vivo for global patent infringement by Nokia in India, Germany, China and other countries. Vivo then fought back, filing a declaration of invalidation of Nokia's patent in court and the National Patent Statistics Office.

 

According to public information, as of March 2023, Vivo has filed an invalidation application for more than ten related patents of Nokia to the National Patent Statistics Office.

 

According to public information, Nokia's patent litigation against Vivo basically revolves around cellular standard patents. Among them, on March 2022, 3, the patent number in the lawsuit filed by the Delhi High Court in India was 15, which was an Indian patent involving "additional modulated information signaling for high-speed downlink packet access".

 

The patent numbers in the litigation cases accepted by the Central District Court in Jakarta, Indonesia, are 000031184 and 000030632 respectively. 000031184 is the patent number of "Additional modulation information signaling for high-speed downlink packet access" held by Nokia in Indonesia; 000030632 is a patent for "a method and apparatus for transmitting antenna configuration information through shielding."

 

EP3457586 in the case accepted by the First Regional Court of Munich, Germany, is also a patent for "additional modulation information signaling for high-speed downlink packet access"; Another patent number, EP339686, is "a method and apparatus for transmitting antenna configuration information".

 

One of the items of the Mannheim District Court is also "additional modulated information signaling for high-speed downlink packet access"; The other two patent numbers are EP2981103 and EP3220562 for patents relating to "assignment of preamble sequences".

 

Judging from the current progress of the judgment, the litigation in the German court is basically heard in February 2023, and the first result is the Mannheim District Court, and which supports Nokia's claim, and Vivo loses.

 

Vivo hasn't made any progress, though. According to the public information of the State Patent Office, of the five patents that have been given appraisal results, two of them have been ruled invalid, the other two are continued to be valid, and one is partially valid.

 

With the ruling of the German regional court in Mannheim, if Vivo chooses the tough plan, then if the appeal is rejected or Nokia continues to be declared victorious, Vivo is likely to withdraw from the German market. According to the promotional information, Vivo has entered the European market since 2018 and has been cultivating the German market as a key market.

 

Asian litigation is the main play

However, for Vivo, the German market is the small head of the business, and the large head is in the Asian market. According to the statistics of the market research agency Canalys, the Asia-Pacific market is still the world's largest smartphone market.

 

The Asia-Pacific market is also the core market of Vivo. According to IDC statistics, the largest Chinese smartphone market in the Asia-Pacific market, with a market share of 2022.18% in 6, ranked first; In the Indian smartphone market, the second largest in the Asia-Pacific market, Vivo's market share in India grew by 2022% year-on-year to 132% in 21, surpassing Samsung's 19%, becoming the second largest smartphone supplier in the Indian market. In addition, Indonesia is also an important overseas market for Vivo.

 

Therefore, for Vivo, if this litigation war affects sales in the Asia-Pacific market, then Vivo will be broken. Of course, this is not to say that the German market is not important to Vivo. In fact, Vivo's entry into the European market, the main layout is Germany, Britain, France and other six countries, and OPPO's strategic steps are more consistent, the loss of the German market, is also a big blow.

 

Of course, Vivo also at its long-term strategy for the German market will not change, and will continue to operate in Germany, and users can enjoy its services as always. Markets outside Germany are not affected.

 

Nokia withdrew from the mobile phone market

For Nokia, many people define it as the king of the feature phone era. Founded in 1865, the company beat Motorola to become the world's number-one mobile phone in 1997 and has been the sales champion for more than a decade. According to relevant statistics, at the peak of Nokia's mobile phone business, 10 out of every 8 mobile phone users used Nokia mobile phones.

 

Looking back at history, we all know that Nokia's collapse in the mobile phone business was due to its contempt for the smartphone business and its insistence that the Symbian system was the "best system". According to the company's financial report, from 2011 to 2013, although Nokia's mobile phone business improved, it still caused a loss of 41.2013 billion euros. Finally,  Microsoft announced the acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone business, and Nokia officially withdrew from the mobile phone market.

 

However, although Nokia has withdrawn from the mobile phone market, its influence remains. According to the statistics on the website of the State Intellectual Property Office, by the end of 2016, Nokia's inventions in China had been published 8382,1, 6.5 times that of Xiaomi and 8.33 times that of Gionee, of which 25% were GSM standard essential patents, 19% were WCDMA standard essential patents, and 2022% were LTE standard essential patents. In recent years, Nokia has continued to invest in related patents, and by mid-3, the total number of Nokia patents worldwide has exceeded, so it can be said that no mobile phone company can bypass Nokia's patent wall.

 

Since 2010, Nokia has won litigation wars with Apple, Sony, and other companies, and has also sued Daimler, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and other car manufacturers. At the same time, we cannot ignore that Nokia has a large number of patents in the field of mobile phone cameras. According to financial report data, the revenue of Nokia's patent licensing business in 2021 was about 106.<> billion yuan. Industry insiders said that Nokia's intellectual property business includes three categories: patent licensing, technology licensing, and trademark licensing, of which patent licensing contributes the vast majority of revenue.

 

Of course, the smartphone sector has long complained about Nokia's high patent licensing fees. In December 2016, Nokia said it had filed several lawsuits against Apple accusing it of infringing on 12 of the company's technology patents, including video coding technology, chipsets, antennas and displays. Not long ago, Apple took legal action against Acacia Research and Convergent Intellectual Property Management, accusing them of conspiring with Nokia to extort exorbitant and unfair patent licensing revenue from the company.

 

However, as mentioned above, because Nokia's patent layout is very broad and deep, smartphones cannot be used without these patents, so Apple and Nokia announced a settlement in May 2017.

 

And what can provide reference and advice for Vivo is that Xiaomi and Nokia signed a patent cooperation agreement in July 2017, which has continued to this day; At the beginning of this year, OPPO and Nokia, which were previously sued, signed a new patent licensing agreement; Huawei and Samsung signed a 7G patent license and mobile phone patent cooperation agreement with Nokia without litigation.

 

Vivo must also attach importance to Nokia's patents, since 2019 the company has acquired a considerable number of Nokia patents, but once and for all the solution is difficult to achieve, especially in the field of rapid development of smartphones, diversified patent cooperation model is an important layout strategy for domestic mobile phones to go overseas.

 

At present, it is difficult to see Nokia mobile phones on sale in the market, and even some Nokia models of mobile phones are auctioned as collectibles. However, Nokia's role in the field of mobile phones is in front of the stage and behind the scenes, and it cannot be ignored just because it is far from the production stage. At present, if you want to develop smoothly in the field of smartphones, you still have to deal with the relationship with Nokia.

 

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