InterDigital to get $253M in Nokia patent settlement

InterDigital and Nokia have settled on a final settlement price in their long-running patent dispute but the two have not yet settled on any future royalty agreements for Nokia's product lines, sending the companies back to the negotiating room.

Nokia has agreed to pay InterDigital $253 million for all past royalties owed on InterDigital's TDMA patents, which touch upon all of Nokia's GSM, GPRS and EDGE handsets. But the two vendors have also scrapped their previous 3G licensing agreement, which would have expired at the end of the year. Starting now, all UMTS products Nokia produces using InterDigital technology will be unlicensed until the companies finish negotiations.

"We remain hopeful that we can reach an amicable resolution on this issue on terms acceptable to both parties," InterDigital President and CEO William Merritt said in a statement. "By terminating the current license agreement, the parties have a clean slate from which to work and resolve 3G issues."

The final settlement was actually $1 million above the number an international arbitrator settled on last June. The Arbitral Tribunal decided on a royalty payment between $232 million and $252 million. Nokia appealed the case, but a federal judge ruled against the handset vendor in December.