Nokia, Samsung ink 5G patent license agreement

Nokia and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. have signed a deal for 5G patent licensing, and this was confirmed on Monday, Jan. 23. The Finnish telecom and IT company agreed to a multi-year agreement to grant Samsung a license to its 5G patents.

The contract between Nokia and Samsung is actually sort of a renewal or extension after their previous agreement expired in December 2022. The former said it had signed a new cross-license patent deal with Samsung to continue their partnership.

According to Reuters, the South Korean conglomerate will forward payments for the patent licensing starting this month but did not disclose the financial terms agreed upon. It was mentioned that Samsung has a 5G patent agreement with Ericsson telecom firm as well.

Nokia said that its deal with Samsung Electronics includes its fundamental inventions in 5G and other technologies. In any case, the telecom firm was said to have invested more than €130 billion or about $141.13 billion for its research and development (R&D) since 2000 and boosted its portfolio by increasing the number of its patent families to about 20,000. More than 4,500 of these patents were categorized as essential to 5G.

“Samsung is a leader in the smartphone industry, and we are delighted to have reached an amicable agreement with them,” Nokia Technologies’ president, Jenni Lukander, said in a press release. “The agreement gives both companies the freedom to innovate, and reflects the strength of Nokia’s patent portfolio, decades-long investments in R&D, and contributions to cellular standards and other technologies.”

Meanwhile, Nokia and Samsung Electronics’ deal is reportedly consistent with the assumptions that the former has divulged in the long-term Nokia Technologies outlook commentary in its third quarter financial report and January to September 2022 that was issued on Oct. 20 of the same year.

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