The European Union warned Nokia from becoming a patent troll

European Commissioner for Competition Joaquin Almunia (Joaquin Almunia) предупредил Nokia on the inadmissibility of becoming a patent troll. This threat came after the Finnish company sold most of its business Microsoft. The most valuable of the remaining assets are Nokia patents.



Joaquin Almunia gave permission for the deal between Nokia and Microsoft to sell mobile business for $ 5, 44 billion euros. He said that the purchase "is not a threat to Microsoft», but in a new environment, Nokia may try to "extract higher profits" of its patent portfolio. "In other words, it can act as a patent troll, or, to put it mildly, as an organization for the protection of patents," - said Joaquin Almunia.

Nokia has a lot of patents in the field of mobile communications. Under the deal, Microsoft has received a 10-year license to use them. The threat is that Nokia can now honestly refuse to license patents to other mobile phone manufacturers, but instead will blackmail them by using patents as a competitive advantage.

If that happens, the Commission initiates anti-trust case against Nokia, warned the European Commissioner for Competition. He promised that from now on will be closely watched for the Finnish company.

Some mobile phone manufacturers in recent years have used their patents to put pressure on competitors, including Samsung and Motorola, so Nokia has examples to follow. The company has already embarked on a dubious track, achieving a ban on sale in the UK smartphone HTC One Mini, because the company HTC нарушает patents Nokia . Now the Taiwanese company to pay compensation to Nokia.

Currently Nokia earns about 500 million euros a year in license fees. After the deal with Microsoft, this amount will increase to 1, 65 billion euros per year.

Source: habrahabr.ru/post/205522/