The Chinese technology group Huawei became the latest company to sign a patent agreement with Nokia, boosting the Finnish group in the face of doubts about its core telecommunications equipment business.
Nokia said on Thursday it had signed a multi-year patent agreement with Huawei, but did not disclose any financial details.
The Finnish group has accumulated a valuable patent portfolio for three decades as a leader in the mobile phone industry. His patents include technology that reinforces mobile signals within the phone, preserves battery life and speech recognition.
"Huawei is one of the largest companies in China and is among the leading manufacturers of smartphones in the world and we are pleased to welcome our family of patent licensees," said Maria Varsellona, legal director of Nokia.
The advent of complex smartphones has increased the value of patents. That has led to a wave of lawsuits involving people like Apple and Samsung. Huawei sued US telecoms operator T-Mobile in Texas last year. Then, Nokia challenged Huawei in defense of its client.
Nokia said it expected the litigation to end now.
The hand of Nokia in the disputes has been reinforced by its purchase last year of Alcatel-Lucent, which brought with it the Bell Labs, rich in patents. But smartphone manufacturers have often argued about the fair and reasonable price for the use of patents.
In May, Nokia and Apple settled a patent dispute after the iPhone manufacturer agreed to make an initial cash payment to the Finnish company and sign a new license agreement. Analysts estimated that the agreement could be worth about 500 million euros to Nokia. Apple had previously accused Nokia of "using the tactics of a patent troll."
Nokia said it expected to start booking the Huawei agreement payments in the current quarter and that there would be "an element of recurring non-recurring revenue." He added that the agreement also included some cross-licensing of Huawei patents.
Shares in Nokia rose 3 percent to € 3.98 on Thursday morning, but are still a third below their peak this year.
Investors have been frightened by weak prospects for network equipment manufacturers, and Nokia warned in October that the sector would suffer sales declines this year and next.
The manufacturers of telecommunications equipment wait until the arrival of the new 5G networks towards the beginning of the next decade to boost the business with the operators that currently reduce spending.
Investors saw Nokia as in better shape than Ericsson, its Swedish rival, which has issued multiple profit warnings, but its shares have been affected by a persistent drop in revenue.
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