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Nokia pays $20 million to Qualcomm to use UMTS
We just saw that Qualcomm sent five new patent lawsuits to Nokia a few days back, but hey, business is business. Putting aside their deep-rooted differences for just long enough to let the ink dry, Nokia has agreed to pay Qualcomm a cool $20 million for the rights to use UMTS patents held by the CDMA royalty ringleader (as you may recall, UMTS rests atop WCDMA). The blood money cash will cover just the second quarter of 2007 so that Nokia can continue hawking UMTS handsets worldwide for the time being. But, come the first of July, Nokia may have to pony up another wad of cash or continue butting heads with foe Qualcomm over multiple patents. That, or Nokia will stop making handsets with UMTS (ha! we crack ourselves up sometimes).[Via I4U News]
Nokia and Qualcomm ready to play nice because of WiMax?
Qualcomm and Nokia, the two heavyweight fighters in a long and drawn out nasty battle over intellectual property rights are possibly burying the hatchet (just not in each other's backs.) Both companies are having a press conference along with Sprint Nextel a week from tomorrow (Feb. 28). Now, when you get Qualcomm and Sprint Nextel together, nothing seems out of place. Inject Nokia in there and there is something afoot -- but what? With Sprint Nextel committed to WiMax for its 4G plans and Nokia shaking hands with Sprint Nextel on that turf, maybe Nokia and Qualcomm are close to shaking hands in some form after years of issues that left Nokia holding an expensive but worthless 1xRTT bag of, well, nothing. Maybe WiMax will be the glue that reseals that relationship.
