Nokia sells over 450 patents to Sisvel, mainly for wireless
updated 06:30 pm EST, Fri January 13, 2012
Cover GSM, UMTS / WCDMA and LTE technology
Nokia has sold Sisvel International 47 patent families comprising more than 450 patents and applications. Thirty-three of the patent families, made up of more than 350 patents and applications, have been declared "essential" by Nokia to communications technology, including GSM UMTS/WCDMA 3G,and LTE 4G. Financial terms weren't given out.
The balance of the portfolio consists of implementation patents including video encoding optimization technologies. The acquired patents remain subject to prior agreements between Nokia and its licensees. Nokia will remain licensed under the portfolio as part of the acquisition.
Sisvel manages and acquires intellectual property. Its holdings includes MP3 and MPEG audio and DECT telephony. It is in the process of creating patent pools for LTE, DVB-C2 and Wi-Fi.
Nokia has indicated that its decision to sell the patents was part of a regular patent portfolio management process. The 450 reflects only a small part of the company's intellectual property, which still includes over 30,000 patents and licenses. The Finnish firm also recently offloaded 2,000 patents to Mosaid in what some are concerned is a preamble to lawsuits.
