Fists keep flying between Nokia, Qualcomm

In the increasingly tedious patent licensing dispute between mobile giants Nokia and Qualcomm, the mud keeps flying. Qualcomm on Thursday rejected Nokia’s $20m payment, which the Finn offered as an as an advance payment on Qualcomm royalties.

The US chip shop maintains that both the amount of the payment and the terms that Nokia is seeking to impose in connection with it are at odds with the parties’ 2001 licence agreement on CDMA and WCDMA products.

In a nutshell, Qualcomm wants Nokia to cough up a lot more cash.

“Ironically, the royalty rate implied by Nokia’s attempted payment is a mere fraction of the rates that Nokia itself seeks to impose when it attempts to enforce its patents,” Qualcomm said.

Nokia meanwhile, hit Qualcomm with a statement claiming that if Qualcomm’s own products comply with industry standards then it must be using over one hundred of Nokia’s GSM/WCDMA and cdma2000 essential patents in its chipsets.

In another nutshell, Nokia wants Qualcomm to cough up a lot of cash.

“Qualcomm is the largest user in the world of Nokia’s technology and patents. Nokia’s request for royalty payments from Qualcomm is based on royalty levels which are fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory,” the Finnish vendor said.