Nokia and Qualcomm go again

Nokia and Qualcomm’s ongoing dispute over licensing has erupted into another round of claim and counter-claim. Nokia went public first, with a claim that it had paid Qualcomm for the use of its patents in W-CDMA phones for the second quarter of 2007 (its current agreement with the chip developer ran out on 9 April 2007).
Nokia said that “the payment announced today does not extend, and is not related to, the old agreement. Rather, it is based on the licenses that Qualcomm has agreed and provided through the European Telecommunication Standardization Institute (ETSI).”Nokia also said that it regarded Qualcomm’s earlier patents as paid-up and royalty-free as from April 9.
Qualcomm hit back. It has rejected Nokia’s $20 million payment and what it termed, “the accompanying multiple pages of terms upon which Nokia conditioned its payment.”
“Both the amount of the payment and the terms that Nokia sought to unilaterally impose in connection with it are at odds with the parties’ 2001 license agreement,” a Qualcomm  statement said.
Qualcomm had previously asked an arbitrator to rule that Nokia has elected to extend the terms of the 2001 license agreement by its admitted use of Qualcomm’s patents in Nokia’s WCDMA and CDMA  products after April 9.
Qualcomm also reacted to Nokia’s statement that “it has paid less than 3% aggregate license fees on WCDMA handset sales under all its patent license agreements” and that such “WCDMA handset related royalty payments made by Nokia include all WCDMA handset royalty payments made to Qualcomm”.  If true, Qualcom said, this would mean that Nokia has seriously underpaid royalties owed to QUALCOMM under the parties’ 2001 license agreement and is in material breach of the agreement.