Espoo, Finland - Nokia learned that Qualcomm has filed a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) asking the commission to open an investigation into the alleged infringement by Nokia of six GSM standard related Qualcomm patents. Nokia is currently evaluating the filing and will respond as necessary.
As disclosed by both parties, Nokia's obligations to pay royalties to Qualcomm under the current license agreement will expire on April 9, 2007. Nokia and Qualcomm are in active negotiations to extend, or replace, the current agreements.
The ITC request is the third legal action taken by Qualcomm against Nokia in the past eight months. While we are still evaluating Qualcomm's latest action it appears that most of the patents which are the subject matter of Qualcomm letter to the ITC are believed by Nokia to be covered by Qualcomm's prior agreements to license on fair and reasonable terms and are thus not properly subject to a request by Qualcomm to the ITC.
These repetitive legal actions, over GSM technologies that have been in the market for many years, reflect Qualcomm's concern over the current 3G UMTS patent negotiations. These actions demonstrate that the conditions applicable to ongoing negotiations between Nokia and Qualcomm have substantially changed since the early 1990's. At that time Qualcomm held a dominant patent position in IS-95 standard and was able to impose that position on the industry.
Since the early 1990's Nokia has built a leading wireless intellectual property portfolio by investing over EUR 25 billion in research and development. Today Nokia's intellectual property portfolio consists of over 10,500 patent families. As a world leader in the development of wireless communications technologies, with over 220 essential patents in GSM alone and far more essential patents than Qualcomm in 3G UMTS standard, Nokia holds a very strong patent position.
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It should be noted that certain statements herein which are not historical facts, including, without limitation, those regarding: A) the timing of product and solution deliveries; B) our ability to develop, implement and commercialize new products, solutions and technologies; C) expectations regarding market growth, developments and structural changes; D) expectations regarding our mobile device volume growth, market share, prices and margins, E) expectations and targets for our results of operations; F) the outcome of pending and threatened litigation; and G) statements preceded by "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "foresee," "target," "estimate," "designed" or similar expressions are forward-looking statements. Because these statements involve risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from the results that we currently expect. Factors that could cause these differences include, but are not limited to: 1) the extent of the growth of the mobile communications industry, as well as the growth and profitability of the new market segments within that industry which we target; 2) the availability of new products and services by network operators and other market participants; 3) our ability to identify key market trends and to respond timely and successfully to the needs of our customers; 4) the impact of changes in technology and our ability to develop or otherwise acquire complex technologies as required by the market, with full rights needed to use; 5) competitiveness of our product portfolio; 6) timely and successful commercialization of new advanced products and solutions; 7) price erosion and cost management; 8) the intensity of competition in the mobile communications industry and our ability to maintain or improve our market position and respond to changes in the competitive landscape; 9) our ability to manage efficiently our manufacturing and logistics, as well as to ensure the quality, safety, security and timely delivery of our products and solutions; 10) inventory management risks resulting from shifts in market demand; 11) our ability to source quality components without interruption and at acceptable prices; 12) our success in collaboration arrangements relating to development of technologies or new products and solutions; 13) the success, financial condition and performance of our collaboration partners, suppliers and customers; 14) any disruption to information technology systems and networks that our operations rely on; 15) our ability to protect the complex technologies that we or others develop or that we license from claims that we have infringed third parties' intellectual property rights, as well as our unrestricted use on commercially acceptable terms of certain technologies in our products and solution offerings; 16) general economic conditions globally and, in particular, economic or political turmoil in emerging market countries where we do business; 17) developments under large, multi-year contracts or in relation to major customers; 18) exchange rate fluctuations, including, in particular, fluctuations between the euro, which is our reporting currency, and the US dollar, the Chinese yuan, the UK pound sterling and the Japanese yen; 19) the management of our customer financing exposure; 20) our ability to recruit, retain and develop appropriately skilled employees; and 21) the impact of changes in government policies, laws or regulations; as well as 22) the risk factors specified on pages 12 - 22 of the company's annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2005 under "Item 3.D Risk Factors."
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