Germany Mannheim District Court recently ruled in favour of Nokia in a patent case against Vivo, which involves Nokia’s 4G standard essential patents (SEP), and may result in vivo products not being sold in Germany.
On April 11, local time, Vivo issued an announcement on its German official website and the full translation of the announcement:
Vivo fully respects intellectual property rights and is committed to continuous innovation through extensive research and development. In recent years, Vivo has entered into cross-licensing agreements with many leading companies. We have negotiated with Nokia to renew our mutual licenses, but so far no agreement has been reached. We strongly believe that Nokia has not fulfilled its obligation to provide licenses on "FRAND" (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms.
We are disappointed with the decision of the Mannheim District Court in Germany and are prepared to suspend sales and marketing of the products in question through official Vivo Germany channels if necessary. We are preparing an appeal of the decision and will review other options. In the meantime, we will continue to negotiate with Nokia to resolve this matter in accordance with the FRAND terms.
Our plans for a long-term commitment to the German market remain unchanged. vivo will continue to do business in Germany in the future and our customers can continue to rely on our services. There is no impact on our business outside of Germany.
It is worth mentioning that in July last year, the Mannheim District Court in Germany ruled that OPPO infringed Nokia’s patents and granted Nokia a cease and desist order against OPPO, and some devices of OPPO and OnePlus were banned from sale in Germany.
In response, the person in charge of OPPO responded that sales of some products will be suspended in Germany, and he also said, “The company firmly opposes unreasonably high patent fees and the malicious behaviour of using litigation to coerce licensees to negotiate and accept unreasonably high license fees.” He also mentioned that OPPO respects intellectual property rights and advocates reasonable fees, and advocates resolving intellectual property disputes between licensors and licensees in an amicable and negotiated manner, respecting each other’s patent values.
