Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Nokia likely netted $600 million plus in Apple patent settlement

By | June 14, 2011, 8:06am PDT

Nokia likely extracted a one-time $608 million payment from Apple as the companies settled their patent litigation, but the long-term health of the company depends on products not royalties.

Following news that Nokia settled its patent litigation with Apple, which is now licensing patents from its rival, analysts quickly moved to figure out the revenue impact. Nokia said that Apple’s payment will boost dismal second quarter results. Related:

Deutsche Bank analyst Kai Korschelt said in a research note that Nokia is likelty to get a 420 million euro payment in the second quarter. That sum, which translates to $608 million, assumes a 1 percent royalty rate on all 110 million iPhones sold up until the first quarter at an average selling price of $550 million.

That figure is roughly in line with historical patent cases. In March 2006, Research in Motion paid NTP a $612.5 million to settle litigation. Nokia paid Qualcomm $2.3 billion in 2008. Meanwhile, Qualcomm agreed to pay Broadcom $891 million over 4 years in April 2009. Samsung and LG both agreed to pay Kodak big patent bucks in Dec. 2009 with settlements of $550 million and $414 million respectively.

Recurring revenue payments for Nokia will probably come out to 95 million euros, or $137.6 million, a quarter, said Korschelt.

Morgan Stanley analyst Patrick Standaert said that Nokia’s quick win doesn’t change the long-term picture.

The patent litigation settlement with Apple gives Nokia a profit stream of ongoing royalty payments and an indirect exposure to Apple’s success. However, Nokia is a product company and we need to see success in the new smartphone strategy to become more positive in the long term. Nokia’s patent win does little for the long-term picture. Nokia still has to transition to Windows Phone 7 devices and keep some market share going forward.

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Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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RE: Nokia likely netted $600 million plus in Apple patent settlement
talih Updated - 8th Aug
Well done! Thank you very much for professional templates and community edition
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Larry,

An "average selling price of 550 million" doesn't look right to me, especially with sales of 110 million iPhones. Neither does the calculated average price of $5/iPhone.

Cheers,

--rj
@Roger_Jennings @Roger_Jennings I think the last part "of $550 million" is not to follow "the average selling price", but is probably meant to follow "a 1% royalty rate". Confusing sentence structure, perhaps.
@Roger_Jennings I assume that 550 million is 1% of the turnover of which Apple pays royalties. The amount that will be paid to Nokia.
That's a lot of money they can invest into WP7.
@LoverockDavidson yuck!
@LoverockDavidson They don't need any more money. MS is footing the bill aren't they.
@rpollard@...
Its a mutal agreement I'm sure.
@LoverockDavidson WP7 is a joke and Kin is the punchline. Microsoft NEEDED to throw cash at Nokia to make anything actually happen with it. Microsoft's approach has been to just inundate with cash to get people to make their phones because no one wants them.
@snoop0x7b
Is that why WP7 phones sold out in some parts of the world?
@LoverockDavidson

Because very few were made, and even fewer shipped to stores.
@snoop0x7b

Since you clearly have never owned or at least used any WP7 phone we know which orifice you are speaking from.
@Raid6: I've tried one in a store. I was impressed with a few of the features (I really liked being able to get to the camera from the unlock screen), when I tried it the platform wasn't really all that mature compared to Android or even iOS. I feel that they went backwards in a lot of ways, namely by throwing out a lot of what they learned from Windows Mobile... There are features that WM had that WP7 did not at the time have for example WP7 didn't launch with copy/paste, that's something every phone should have.

When I tried it the droid sitting next to it had that feature...
@LoverockDavidson If you make on piece of crap (not saying WP7 devices are) and somebody buys it that is selling out, not success or a hit.
They may want to keep it in the bank. This settlement gives Apple the right to use certain Nokia patents, but it curiously contains no cross-license, i.e. Nokia gets no license to any Apple patents. As Nokia moves out of the feature phone segment and into more sophisticated smartphones, it's going to find out that it's difficult to make a smartphone without tripping over an Apple patent.
lawsuit: Nokia's demand that Apple cross-license in addition to the royalty, something demanded of no other cell pone maker.
@Robert Hahn According to the New York Times, Nokia requested broad cross-licensing with Apple. But that usually costs, and Nokia needed the money. This had been going on long enough, and the end result is that Nokia gets cash, but licenses to only a few of Apple's many, many patents.

It doesn't actually matter if Microsoft has cross licensing with Apple or not -- at least in the USA (land of the software patent), it's the hardware that violates the patent. So if Nokia's selling the hardware, they need the license, whether they're running MS's software or not. They might get around this if Microsoft actually sells the hardware.
@LoverockDavidson
Except WP7 isn't Nokia's.
@LoverockDavidson Fixed it for you wink

That's a lot of money they can piss away on WP7.
Somebody is getting paid.
Taking the money (from Apple) and investing it in WP7 is a waste. Microsoft has no idea how to create a GUI that is simple, friendly, and RELIABLE. My last Windows phone was just that--my last.
@ripfree You must not have seen WP7. It is the smoothest and simpliest GUI around.
@ripfree

Why do you assume they are "investing" in WP7?

Nokia does not only market Windows based phones. What is it with your ilk's obsecion with translating everything to Microsoft...seriously!
@Raid6

Probably something to do with Nokia betting the company on WP7.
@Raid6

Probably something to do with Nokia betting the company on WP7.
More than the Win7 GUI, Windows Mobile needs a good (better) community of apps, developers, support, etc. Apple and Google are excellent on that end with the Itunes, Android Market, etc. I own an Android Tab and a WinMo phone. The products/services offered between the two isn't even close.
0 Votes
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No Biggie for Apple...
Synthmeister 14th Jun
It's nice to have $50 Billion in the bank and $11 billion per quarter revenue from just the iPhone.
@Synthmeister its nice to have 50 billion in cash after paying regular dividends to investors with over 20 billion in revenue from two products that dominate the market with 90% market share and having more powerful products comming out each year like the fastest selling product in the history and increasing dominance in gaming industry, online services and business products. Its nice to have a free hand in daily business operations so that the competition can be faced head on
@abhi.jamwal

Regular dividends? Where'd you get that from? Apple hasn't paid dividends in more than a decade.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/quotes/apple-inc/aapl/nas/dividends-splits

See all those $0.00, that's Apple not paying any dividends, let alone "regular" dividends.
@abhi.jamwal

To pay dividends Apple would have to re-patriate LOTS of money they are squirelling overseas. Apple would pays taxes on it. Apple stockholder would pay taxes on it. Schools would not be closing. See USUNCUT for details. Same goes for most of the big international tech companies that are supposed to be US companies. They make high profits in the US and declare high costs outside the US and don't pay their fair share of US taxes.

Apple is the worst offender, as shown by the $50 billion cash you claim they are sitting on.
@abhi.jamwal
Paying dividends: He was reading the financial data for Microsoft! Weren't you abhi.jamwal?? abhi.jamwal??? abhi.jamwal???
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@mswift
fr_gough 14th Jun
Odd, schools weren't closing under the Clinton and Bush budgets, which were a LOT smaller than Obama's budgets. So obviously spending too little money isn't the problem.
@mswift@... Oh please, you now want to blame Apple for schools being closed down, that's pathetic.

Apple is the worst offender, as shown by the $50 billion cash you claim they are sitting on.
Cash they have has absolutely no indication on them being an "offender" or not.
@Synthmeister More like $6-7 billion on new iPhones + contract revenue.
@Synthmeister

Even better having custormers you can piss on and they believe you when you tell them "it's raining".
0 Votes
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Where are the apple lovers
snoop0x7b 14th Jun
So where are the copying comments from Apple lovers now? I'm waiting...
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@snoop0x7b So Apple settled... this means it's a win for Apple as now they are paying the same as every other company for using the same licenses rather than being overcharged as was Nokia's original intent.

But while we are on the subject of copying maybe YOU can tell me how Android went from a Blackberry OS clone to an iOS clone when the first iPhone became successful - and remember the then-CEO of Google was on Apple's board of directors and had access to all of the research and prototypes of the original iPhone and iOS. No one has yet to give a real answer without resembling monkey at the zoo flinging their own poo.
@athynz
We will believe you when Apple files a law suit! At the present time the heat is on Apple. Please try and stay focused, if you can!!!
@athynz I honestly don't care what Google "copied". The Apple fans are the ones who go around complaining about copying... My point is about your hypocrisy. My problem is the fact that you people can't admit it when Apple copies others and go further and call it innovation.

I wouldn't mock Apple for copying if they didn't go around claiming everyone else was copying them... And when I do it it's always about the fact that it's hypocritical.
@athynz
Ugh, what does Android haft to do with this?
@windozefreak - Nothing wrong with my focus at all. This settlement is NOT about and was never about Apple copying the patents but the fact that Nokia was trying to charge Apple far more than they charged others for using the same licenses. What part of that did you not get? Apple is not going to sue Google because Google does not make any money on Android - hence the lawsuit against HTC.

@snoop0x7b - Dude you are the one who brought up Apple "copying" Nokia and yet when I ask you about Google copying iOS to make Android you call me a hypocrite... And you STILL have yet to answer my question.

@Zc456 - I brought it up to prove a point... that Apple is not the only tech company who copies things and claims originality... I've asked time and again about Google copying iOS to make Android and no one has yet to answer me on that.
@snoop0x7b Do you have blinders on or something? I have seen countless posts (including those from you if I remember correctly) in just the past week bashing Apple for copying. They copy off each other and they all get bashed for it constantly from the other side here in the talk backs.
@snoop0x7b this is typical IP stuff that Nokia gets from every phone maker. They hold a significant chunk of the patents for basic mobile phone function as they are a pioneer in cell phone tech. Apple was always been malleable to paying, just not the exorbitant amount Nokia was initially asking for. The sweet part about this for Apple is that Nokia will have no qualms going after Android and WP7 phones now.
@CowLauncher Most of the others have already licensed this patent... I don't think Nokia will really be able to go after them for a patent they already licensed. Motorola, HTC, Samsung, and LG have been in the mobile phone business longer than Apple has and if they didn't already have a license Nokia hasn't been vigorously defending the patent.
0 Votes
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Nokia wanted to charge Apple MORE than other cell phone makers, even though it was illegal (that was part of the agreement Nokia made when lobbying to have their cell technology made an international standard), and, two, Nokia was demanding a bunch of Apple patents in a cross-license deal, something also that Nokia was not allowed to do. So here's what happened. The judges involved basically hinted very strongly to Nokia that they were going to lose. Whereupon Nokia went to Apple and said: Fine, pay us what everyone else does, and Apple said: OK, here's your check. In five years we'll own you anyway.
So let me get this straight. Microsoft makes money off of HTC who sells Android phones. Now Nokia makes money off of Apple who sells iPhones.

Who needs to sell phones? Just sit back and collect the cash. These patent wars have gone beyond the point of ridiculous.
@mstrsfty I agree. Crazy. Nokia could easily decide to do NOTHING and they're still projected to earn $136.7 MILLION PER QUARTER! That's more than $600 million per year. For doing NOTHING. They could close up everything, have a PO Box and one employee to handle the accounting. We should all be so lucky.
@jscott69 If tens of billions of R & D dollars is "nothing" then why don't you go ahead and give me "nothing". I accept cash and PayPal. wink

On another note, I've read elsewhere that iPads and iPods may also infringe on some of the patents. Was that incorrect, or do the numbers above fail to include those royalties?
@jscott69 $136.7 million a quarter is more than $600 million a year? I hope you aren't an accountant for Nokia, or anybody else for that matter.
Everyone is missing the big picture. Apple basically paid to use a technology patent that nets them greater profits at a cost of $11.50 per IPHONE sold. It is a great deal versus paying all back royalties and ceasing production of future IPHONES.
Well done! Thank you very much for professional templates and community edition
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