Apple's Nokia Deal Could Cost Android Manufacturers Too

Apple's patent licensing deal with Nokia may have some additional consequences beyond the immediate effects of the settlement. By agreeing to a long-term licensing agreement with Nokia, Apple gets a lengthly, defensive legal fight out of the way. This allows Apple to focus all its legal energies on major battles with Samsung, HTC and Motorola.

Speaking with the NYTimes, Apple indicates that the settlement is actually a cross-licensing one:

Apple and Nokia have agreed to drop all of our current lawsuits and enter into a license covering some of each other’s patents, but not the majority of the innovation that makes the iPhone unique. We are glad to put this behind us and get back to focusing on our respective businesses.

There a larger, much more strategic victory here as well. By agreeing to pay royalties for Nokia's patents, Apple has set a market price -- and given Nokia's patents serious legitimacy. Apple wouldn't pay anything if they didn't have to, and other companies may not want to fight over turf Apple has already acquiesced to Nokia.

jobs
Other companies, notably Android handset manufacturers, may now have to play ball with Nokia on these patents -- and they don't necessarily have the margins to send 1% of gross revenues to Nokia as easily as Apple can. In fact, because Apple has so many of its own patents (some of which it cross-licensed to Nokia) other manufacturers may have to pay even more for the same licenses.

Florian Mueller has suggested just that at FOSS Patents:

Given that Android is in many ways a rip-off of Apple's operating software, Android-based devices are highly likely to infringe on largely the same Nokia patents that Apple now felt forced to pay for.
[...]
This is a sweet defeat for Apple because its competitors -- especially those building Android-based devices -- will also have to pay Nokia, and most if not all of them will likely have to pay more on a per-unit basis because they don't bring as much intellectual property to the table as Apple definitely did.

Apple pays off Nokia, but exposes the competition as well. Competition that doesn't have as much money or intellectual property to barter with.

(Photo by Acaben/Flickr)

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro 34ths Perspective

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
macbook pro blue green

When Will Apple Release the M5 MacBook Pro?

Wednesday March 26, 2025 4:53 pm PDT by
Apple regularly refreshes the MacBook Pro models, and a new version that uses M5 series chips is in the works. Apple just finished refreshing most of the Mac lineup with M4 chips, and now it's time for the M5. Rumors suggest that we could see the first M5 MacBook Pro models this fall. Design There have been no rumors of a design update for the M5 MacBook Pro models that are coming this...
Apple Lumon Terminal Pro

Apple's Mac Site Features Fictional 'Lumon Terminal Pro'

Wednesday March 26, 2025 12:19 pm PDT by
Apple is going all out with promotions for the popular Severance Apple TV+ show today, and as of right now, you'll find a new "Lumon Terminal Pro" listed on Apple's Mac site. The Lumon Terminal Pro is designed to look similar to the machines that Severance employees like Mark S. and Helly R. use for macrodata refinement. The Terminal features a blue keyboard, a small display with wide...
Facebook Feature

Facebook's New iPhone App Feature Turns the Clock Back to 2007

Thursday March 27, 2025 1:59 pm PDT by
In the mid-to-late 2000s, Facebook was all about staying connected with friends and family. However, as the social media platform added new features and grew over time, that core experience began to get drowned out. That changes starting now, according to Meta, which today introduced a new feature that will "bring back the joy" of classic Facebook. Specifically, Meta has redesigned the...
Generic iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Coming Soon With These New Features for Your iPhone

Tuesday March 25, 2025 6:45 am PDT by
Apple is expected to release iOS 18.4 to the general public as soon as next week, following more than a month of beta testing. Apple's website says some iOS 18.4 features will be released in "early April," so the update should be out as early as Tuesday, April 1. Apple this week seeded the iOS 18.4 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, barring the discovery of any...
iPhone 17 Pro 34ths Perspective

iPhone 17 Pro Supports 8K Video Recording, Suggests Leaker [Updated]

Wednesday March 26, 2025 4:06 am PDT by
Update 7:25 pm: Based on comments from our forums, it appears the original Weibo post may have been mistranslated and "8K" actually refers to the high price of the device rather than 8K video recording capabilities. The iPhone 16 Pro currently starts at 7,999 yuan in China. Our original article follows below. Apple's forthcoming iPhone 17 Pro models are capable of shooting 8K video, up...
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature 1

'iPhone Fold' to Feature Metallic Glass Hinge That Resists Deformation

Thursday March 27, 2025 4:21 am PDT by
Last week, we covered a report claiming that Apple's book-style foldable iPhone (or "iPhone Fold," as we are provisionally calling it here) will use liquid metal hinges to improve durability and help minimize screen creasing. Today, a Chinese leaker provided more details on the properties of this hinge material that help to clarify why Apple chose it for its first foldable device. According...
iOS 18 4 Ambient Music Control Center

How to Use iOS 18.4's New Ambient Music Feature in Control Center

Thursday March 27, 2025 7:45 am PDT by
The upcoming iOS 18.4 update for the iPhone adds an Ambient Music feature to Control Center. Below, we take a closer look at how it works. iOS 18.4 is currently in beta, so the Ambient Music feature is not widely available yet. The update will likely be released to the general public next week. To use the feature on iOS 18.4, open Control Center and tap on the plus sign in the top-left...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock

Gurman: Jon Prosser's iOS 19 Mockups 'Aren't Representative' of Redesign

Tuesday March 25, 2025 4:47 pm PDT by
The iOS 19 mockup images that leaker Jon Prosser shared today are not representative of the actual iOS 19 design, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said on social media. According to Gurman, the images that are "floating around" are based on "very old builds" or "vague descriptions," and are lacking key features. Gurman says that we can "expect more from Apple in June." Gurman made the same comment ...

Top Rated Comments

Doctor Q Avatar
180 months ago
The "winner" of a cross-licensing deal, if you want to think of it that way, is the one who gets paid, in this case Nokia. I doubt that Apple has had trouble because its lawyers are spread too thin, but the settlement is presumably worth it to Apple. They may have expected to owe these same licensing payments anyway as a result of the lawsuits.

It's best for our interests as consumers if companies have strong reasons to do the R&D for new developments, with rights to their patents being one of their incentives. But it's also in our interests to see new developments used in many products, which can result from cross-licensing and even from patent infringement! Somebody (us) ultimately has to pay for it, of course, but I'd rather pay for R&D than for court battles.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Hellhammer Avatar
180 months ago
nice headline grabbing BS by our media. It is safe to bet that the other manufactures were already paying the for the patents. I know LG, HTC, Samsung, Motorola, and Blackberry already have an agreement with them and most of them have patents sharing with Nokia.

I love the piss poor reporting the media does.
Amen to this. Other OEMs have been making phones way before Apple even came up with the idea of iPhone. They have already settled with Nokia and are paying the license fees, so why would this hurt Android?
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gkpm Avatar
180 months ago
So much hatred against Florian Mueller.

The guy has actually given some good coverage on the Lodsys issues lately.

Don't see the point of such ad hominem attacks. If you have beef with the actual article then say it.

To me it appears the two platforms are similar, so he has a point.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gkpm Avatar
180 months ago
The patents are described in Nokia filing, they're hardware patents
No they are not. There's software patents as well. Stop spreading rubbish.

For example one of the patents is on "Mobile Station with Touch Input Having Automatic Symbol Magnification Function,"

Which is how the iPhone zooms in on the key when you press it on the virtual keyboard. That's a software patent.

See the actual filing here: http://tinyurl.com/yd4rcop (you have to register with the ITC, but it's free)
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BLACKFRIDAY Avatar
180 months ago
******* Florian Müller.

Real mature.

Really guys, when you read the name Florian Müller you should automatically keep it away from MacRumors. The guy is a paid mouthpiece for Microsoft and nothing else.

Great assumptions.

Whatever he says you can be sure that he paints the bleakest picture possible for any Microsoft competitor. Google and anything related to Google is top of his hitlist because at the moment Google looks even more threatening to Microsoft than Apple does, but that can change any moment when he gets different instructions from his paymasters.

That's true but I don't see any reason why he would be bothered.

This site is supposed to be about rumours. I don't mind a bit of actual fact in between the rumours :D but paid disinformation doesn't belong here.

May be the whole news is wrong and baseless, but it's a good rumour anyway. ;)

"Good coverage"? Florian Müller is the one who advises iOS developers to suck it up and pay the patent trolls. And Android developers should do the same.

I can quote a number of people who said 'paying up' was better than kind of litigation whatsoever.
If I remember right, Marco Arment suggested all developers pay and be happy. Maybe that was a short term solution but was indeed the right thing to do if Apple didn't play the game. Even JohnGruber suggested that Litigation can be a big pain and one can suffer a lot.

I don't see anything wrong with his suggession. Like many others, no one knew that Apple was gonna step in, the way things turned out.

Look, when there is a history of one article after the other by the same author spewing misinformation, by an author who has actually no qualifications whatsoever, and each single article is attacking Microsoft competitors, and in many cases making exactly the same statements that Microsoft makes officially at the same time, then an attack on the person is not "ad hominem" anymore.

Provide links so even I can understand that?

And when I strongly agree with Rodimus Prime, as I do on this point, you can safely assume that he is correct.

Maybe he is, but I think he is too short tempered and abusive some times.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rmwebs Avatar
180 months ago
And Android still has to face the Java lawsuit that might wipe them out.

I am sure many people can't wait.

I guess you'd be all for an Apple dictatorship over the market wouldn't you. Are you sure you're a consultant? :rolleyes:
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)