I was wondering what people thought of Nokia's recent sale of patents (which include patents under FRAND) to Sisvel and what it will mean for the industry. Sisvel protects patents very aggressively, even resorting to police raids at trade shows. The other question is, why is Nokia selling so many patents recently? Both MOSAID and Sisvel seem to be eating up Nokia's patent portfolio.

http://www.sisvel.com/english/news/sisvelnews/vegas

When they can't sell phones, why not sell patents

l have no clue what kind of patents they are selling so its hard to say.

Most of the Sisvel patents are FRAND patents essential to 2G/3G/4G standards. Perhaps they predict that the recent uproar about FRAND patents means a change in legislation which will make these patents less valuable to them in future.

I suppose that Sisvel paid Nokia more than Nokia would have expected to get from them (FRAND and all). So it makes sense for Nokia (they get to keep using them, get some money, and don't look evil , while Sisvel, who has no problems acting "evil", may actually benefit from them.

Non-zero-sum they call it

they selling the patent to make it easier for microsoft to buy nokia!

Lets make on thing clear. They are not selling the patents per se.

Nokia still holds the intellectual property of them. What they do is they license the patents to these companies that seek way to profits from them, usually doing it very aggressively. Nokia and the holder will then share the cash in what ever way they decided on the contract.


Nokia has used BY FAR the most to R&D of any mobile company, so as far as i'm concerned let them patent troll. We are after all talking about actual GSM, antenna, manufacturing tooling, LTE etc patents, not about shape of a icon. Nokia can/should concentrate on making phones, let Sisvel and others do the patent trolling.

Some got those patents papers kind toilet paper? Then it's possible to swipe around with them.

Apparently you're not the one that's clear--here's the press release from Sisvel themselves:

http://www.sisvel.com/english/news/sisvelnews/vegas

Of particular interest are these two bits, first the very first sentence:

That sounds like the patents were sold to me. This further confirms it:

Obviously Nokia wouldn't need a license after the sale if it wasn't a sale, would they?

So, to answer the OP's question, I'm fuming and furious. EVERY SINGLE NOKIA HEADLINE makes me more and more angry. As much as I like my N900, I'm ready to ditch it because I can no longer stand to look at the Nokia name any longer. Seriously, I'm that pissed!

Mike

P.S. Just to remind you all of how evil this patent troll is, they went after OpenMOKO!

http://www.csamuel.org/2008/11/14/pa...enmoko-project

Nokia:
We stuffed up our developers/enthusiasts
We stuffed up our new OS
We stuffed up our high-end device
We stuffed up our ecosystem and future plans
We stuffed up our share market
We agreed with Microsoft
We stuffed up any hope for Plan B
We stuffed up our patent portfolio
... ....
Please buy from us, what da-ya say?

@Storkus:
I think Tissot's statement is the correct one. AS the term "acquired" doesn't explicitly refer to any means of "ownership". It COULD mean "purchased" but it MAY also mean "stolen" "found" or even that you were presented with an item.

But back to the main story.
Could be a number of reasons why they've passed on the patents. Cash-flow problems seem unlikely given that M$ are throwing cash at them.
Maybe they thought 'Patent Trolls? If you can't beat 'em......... join 'em'.