Nokia wants to receive a percentage of every car sold, while Daimler is only willing to buy licenses for patents.
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Daimler, the owner of the Mercedes-Benz brand, has infringed Nokia patents on mobile technologies by using them in their cars, a German court ruled in Mannheim. This decision will allow Nokia to ban Daimler from selling cars in Germany, transfers Bloomberg.
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“We cannot understand the verdict of the Mannheim court and will appeal,” said Daimler. If Nokia demands a ban on the sale of cars, it will need to post a bail of € 7 billion, Bloomberg points out. The automaker expects Nokia will not do it.
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Mercedes-Benz violated a patent by not obtaining a license on Nokia’s terms: the Finnish company wants to receive a fee for every vehicle sold with its technologies, instead of licensing the corresponding components to auto parts manufacturers.
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Several suppliers, including Continental AG and Robert Bosch GmbH, support Daimler in this endeavor, the newspaper notes. The automaker believes that such a fee would be too high. In response, Nokia said that its licensed model was adopted by other companies, including BMW AG and Volkswagen AG.
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This decision could set a precedent for how technology for mobile telecommunications systems in cars should be licensed, Bloomberg said. The Mannheim court said it had to side with Nokia because Daimler did not adhere to the existing rules for so-called “standard patents.”
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“We hope that now Daimler will commit itself and receive a license on fair terms,” Nokia said.
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In June 2020, the German Federal Cartel Office invited the Mannheim Court to apply to the European Court of Justice before ruling on the dispute, but the request was rejected. Daimler itself also filed a lawsuit to revoke Nokia’s patents in a separate court, the newspaper recalls.
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