German Court Rules Against Unauthorized Use of Nokia's Inventions

German Court Rules Against Unauthorized Use of Nokia's Inventions
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The Regional Court in Mannheim, Germany issued an injunction against Daimler concerning the unauthorized use of Nokia’s cellular technology in its connected cars. The court has confirmed that Nokia acted in a fair way in licensing its cellular standard-essential patents (SEPs), and that Daimler is using Nokia technologies without authorization.

“Today’s finding is a major endorsement of the long-term engineering work by innovators at Nokia and the important principle that innovators should receive a fair reward for the use of their inventions. We hope that Daimler will now accept its obligations and take a license on fair terms. There is more to gain if we work together,“ said Jenni Lukander, President of Nokia Technologies.

Nokia has an established licensing program and many automotive brands already license its patents for their connected vehicles, including Audi, Bentley, BMW, Mini, Porsche, Rolls Royce, Seat, Skoda and Volkswagen. Nokia has several patent infringement actions pending against Daimler in Germany. The injunction was obtained with patent EP 2 981 103, which enables the car or other end user devices to communicate more efficiently with LTE networks. Nokia has patented this fundamental invention in many countries around the world.

The Finnish company is one of the leading inventors and patent owners for the fundamental communication technologies used in mobile devices and connected vehicles, investing approximately €4.4 billion a year in R&D. It has one of the strongest cellular SEP portfolios in the industry including over 3,000 high-quality patent families essential for 5G. Nokia contributes its cellular technologies to open standards in return for the right to license them on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.