Nokia has bested Qualcomm in the ongoing fight over patents here in Blighty. A high court judge yesterday ruled the disputed Qualcomm GSM patents invalid and said Nokia doesn’t need to compensate Qualcomm for them.
The defeat follows an International Trade Commission decision last week to turn down Qualcomm’s petition for review of Judge Luckern’s Initial Determination last year, which said Nokia does not infringe the three alleged Qualcomm patents in the case and that one of the patents is invalid. It also follows an agreement between two to stand down on patent litigation.
Hopefully the agreement between the two – and not the court fights – is an indicator of how the Nokia-Qualcomm relationship will play out. I can’t help but think if they put took their lawyers’ wages and reivested them into their engineers’ wages, it might be a better result all round.