Nokia introduced it has individually filed lawsuits towards Amazon and HP over alleged infringement of its video-related patents.
Arvin Patel, Nokia’s Chief Licensing Officer, defined the corporate’s motion in a weblog put up:
At present, now we have commenced authorized motion towards Amazon for the unauthorized use of Nokia’s video-related applied sciences in its streaming companies and units. Instances have been filed within the US, Germany, India, the UK, and the European Unified Patent Courtroom.
Amazon Prime Video and Amazon’s streaming units infringe a mixture of Nokia’s multimedia patents masking a number of applied sciences together with video compression, content material supply, content material suggestion and points associated to {hardware}.
Individually, now we have additionally filed circumstances within the US towards HP for the unauthorized use of Nokia’s patented video-related applied sciences of their units.
Patel made clear that litigation is rarely Nokia’s first selection, however the firm was left with no selection in these specific situations:
I need to stress that litigation is rarely our first selection. The overwhelming majority of our patent licensing agreements are agreed amicably. To place this into context, since 2017, now we have concluded or prolonged over 250 licenses – together with amicable licenses with Apple and Samsung – and launched simply 6 litigation campaigns. We’ve been in discussions with every of Amazon and HP for numerous years, however generally litigation is the one manner to reply to firms who select to not play by the foundations adopted and revered by others. And let’s be clear: Amazon and HP profit considerably from Nokia’s multimedia innovations.
The manager additionally made clear Nokia’s stance that whole industries have been enabled and powered by its investments and improvements:
It’s no secret that Over-the-top (OTT) streaming is a big progress market. In 2022, the worldwide OTT streaming market generated nearly $150 billion in income. This yr it’s anticipated to develop to greater than $170 billion. And by 2027 the market is estimated to succeed in $300 billion. But, there’s a mismatch between those that invested in growing the applied sciences that underpin streaming companies and those that profit essentially the most. For instance, since 2000, Nokia has invested greater than €140 billion (and over €4.5 billion final yr alone) in R&D for innovative applied sciences together with mobile and multimedia. Consequently, we maintain one of many world’s strongest patent portfolios of connectivity and multimedia applied sciences – and it’s no exaggeration to say that whole industries are powered by these innovations.
The patent case will probably be attention-grabbing to look at and will have a big influence on the streaming market.
