Lenovo pays Nokia to settle patent dispute that threatened global leader’s PC sales

MORRISVILLE – Lenovo and Nokia have settled a years-long dispute over patents and agreed to a cross-licensing agreement. As part of the settlement, Lenovo made a financial payment to the Finnish tech giant.

The size of the payment was not disclosed.

“The global accord struck will enable future collaboration between our companies for the benefit of customers worldwide,” said John Mulgrew, chief intellectual property officer of Lenovo, in a statement.

Jenni Lukander, president of Nokia Technologies, noted the agreement reflected “Nokia’s decades-long investments in R&D and contributions to cellular and multimedia standards.”

“We appreciate, and very much respect, the constructive spirit Lenovo brought to our negotiations and look forward to working together to bring further innovation to their users around the world,” she added, according to MobileWorldLive.

The legal battled dated back to 2019 and included a lawsuit filed in North Carolina by Nokia against Lenovo. Both companies also had battled in California and Germany where at one time a court ordered a halt to some Lenovo sales. That order was later stayed.

At the core of the battles were a variety of video compression patents.

In 2020, Nokia asked the US International Trade Commission to block Lenovo from importing laptops, tablets and desktop machines in an ongoing dispute over patents.

Lenovo is the world’s top PC seller.

In the fall of 2019, Nokia sued Lenovo alleging patent infringement in the Eastern District of North Carolina.

Nokia says the companies have been “unsuccessful” in negotiating a license to use the patent portfolio.

The company said at the time that Lenovo “has refused to meaningfully engage.”

In the 2019 suit, Nokia said Lenovo had infringed more than 20 patents and noted that numerous other tech firms had agreed to license its technology.

In that suit, Nokia also said Lenovo “refused to meaningfully engage in negotiations.”

Lenovo operates two global headquarters – in Morrisville and Beijing.