Nokia and Samsung Extend Patent Agreement

A number of people had been wondering about the patent agreement between Samsung and Nokia that was about to expire. There was considerable speculation about whether the deal would continue or ended once and for all. However, it seems that the two technology companies have decided to carry on the mutually benefitting agreement. It was announced by the Finnish phone maker, Nokia Corp today that Samsung Electronics has extended its patent deal with them for another five years to come. The expiry date of the patent deal was at the end of this year. Nonetheless, the revised deal means that starting on 1st of January 2014, Samsung will be paying Nokia a greater amount than before.

Nokia provided this information and stated that the exact amount to be paid would be settled in a binding arbitration finally and this would conclude at the end of the year 2015. A statement was made by the Chief Intellectual Property Officer of Nokia Corp, Paul Melin, in which he said that the agreement and extension of arbitration is simply a hallmark of the construction resolution of settling licensing disputes and would end up saving considerable costs associated with transaction for both the parties involved.

There had been some murmurs when Nokia had announced in September that it would be selling off its handset business to none other than Microsoft Corp. But, the company had also announced that it would not be giving off its patent portfolio and would retain its ownership. The company said today that it sees plenty of opportunity for creating value by making investments in innovation and the company would achieve this by managing its licensing activities and its patent portfolio actively. Furthermore, the struggling Finnish company could benefit from the licensing fee that it would obtain from the South Korean giant because Samsung Electronics is the number one phone maker in the world.

Nevertheless, Nokia and Samsung have had a testy relationship for the most part. In the continuing patent suit between Apple and Samsung, it was revealed last month that Samsung insiders had had access to some confidential information and documents that pertained to Apple Inc. These documents included the patent deals of Apple with companies like Ericsson, Nokia, Phillips and Sharp. As per the court filings, licensing had been discussed on June 4th by Dr. Seungho Ahn of Samsung Electronics and Paul Melin of Nokia Corp.

Melin stated that Ahn had admitted that they had seen the terms of the deal that had been signed between Apple and Nokia. He had tried to coerce Melin to sign a similar deal with Samsung and this act had not been appreciated or well received by the court. In other news regarding patent licensing, it was also reported that last week, in the UK, Nokia had managed to win a patent battle that it was raging against Taiwanese manufacturer HTC. It had been decided by the patent court in London that Nokia’s accusation regarding HTC’s infringement of ‘Modulator structure for a transmitter and a mobile station’ was quite accurate.

Plunging Sales Cause Net Loss in Q3 For Nokia

The handset division of Nokia Corp may have been sold to Microsoft Corp, but that’s not helping it stop the sales plunge. The company was forced to report a loss in the third quarter, but there was a surge in the share price because the company had given a positive outlook regarding the continuing operations, especially the networks unit. Last year, the company had reported a net loss of 969 million euros in the third quarter as compared to 91 million euros that it had to bear this year. The revenue of the company totaled about 5.6 billion euros, which indicated a 20% decline.

However, the struggling company reported that the net profit of its network operations had grown about 33% and it was expecting to have a positive operating margin in the last quarter of about 12%. According to expectations, there will be a solid net sales growth for the company. Instead of causing a decline in the share price, Nokia’s shares actually rose by nearly 7%. In the third quarter, the Finnish company had managed to sell about 8.8 million smartphone and all of them were Lumia products. Moreover, this was an increase in smartphone sales for about 40%.

Last year, the company had managed to sell about 6.3 million smartphones in the third quarter. Nonetheless, Lumia products were less than 3 million back then. The surprising thing was that there was an increase in demand for Lumia products this year, which has always remained one of the toughest markets for the handset maker. But, this rise in sales was not enough for the company to give a positive outlook about the devices and services unit that the company has sold to the software giant Microsoft Corp for about $7.2 billion, which the company will show in the fourth quarter as discontinued operations.

The Finnish firm was more upbeat regarding its existing operations that include Nokia Solution Networks, HERE mapping services and also the Advanced Technologies Unit. It was stated by the CFO of the firm that the company would be in a better position after the devices and service unit would be removed officially because its net sales had fallen by about 19% and had become 2.9 billion euros because the company had only managed to sell about 64.6 million devices in comparison to the 83 million that it had sold a year earlier.

The CFO further added that the company was planning to make further investments in the growth of its mapping and location services. The company managed to retain its number 2 spot in the mobile phone sales having a 15.5% global market share that became possible mainly because of its line of non-smartphones that the company still sells in emerging markets. The company wasn’t able to fare well in emerging markets. The sales of the company lagged well behind that of Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics as it sold only nine million units as compared to the 33.8 and 88 million that were sold by the smartphone giants.

Google and Nokia Both Goof Up and Leak Info

While strategic leaks are part of every company’s strategy for enticing and exciting customers, sometimes leaks can also occur because of mistakes. That seems to be the case with two notable companies in the information technology market. In what could be the worst leak that has ever been made by Google, it accidentally listed the heavily rumored Nexus 5 smartphone on its Android Google Play Store. From what it can be speculated by the images, the upcoming smartphone will show off a lot of changes that have been made after the launch of the previous editions. It has a completely different look as compared to its predecessors.

The LG Google Nexus 4 had a sparkly glass back, but the new edition i.e. Google Nexus 5 will have a rubberized back that has been seen in the Nexus tablets. While people are happy that the company has chosen to remove the scratch-prone back of the smartphone, the new rubberized option simply gives the smartphone a mundane look. The listing not only revealed the look of the smartphone, but also its price. The range of the phone will be around $349 and onwards. This means that this will be price of the 16GB variant of the smartphone. This is quite reasonable, considering the hype and specifications associated with the smartphone.

Needless to say, the new smartphone will boast the latest version of the Android OS, i.e. KitKat. Not only will this version make a debut on the device, but will also roll it out for older models of the Nexus smartphone range. A full HD 5 inch display is another specialty that will be associated with the upcoming smartphone. As for other features, the phone will boast memory variants of 16 and 32 GB, have 2Gb RAM and will also have a quad-core processor. However, Google doesn’t seem to wish to enter the camera wars between the smartphone companies as it is going to leave it at 8 megapixel.

Google quickly took off the phone after it had been listed. Nevertheless, now people know that the phone’s launch is not very far off. This seemed to be the week for oversights by major companies as a Chinese e-commerce website also listed Nokia’s upcoming phablet accidentally. The Nokia Lumia 1520 phablet was listed by error by Tmail, which is also an official retailer of Nokia. There have been lots of rumors about the 6 inch phablet and as part of the Lumia series, this device would be running on the Windows 8 platform.

There has been a lot of speculation about the device, but not much is known about the device. The Nokia Lumia 1520 phablet will have the biggest display for now and will be in direct competition with the large smartphones being sold in the market. It will also showcase a full HD display and its pixel resolution will be about 1920 x 1080 pixels. Its best feature will be the 20 MP camera as Nokia is very aggressive in advertising camera features.