Nokia wins second round of legal fight against Daimler on patent fees

By Anne Kauranen and Foo Yun Chee

HELSINKI/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Nokia won on Tuesday the second of its ten lawsuits against Daimler over patent licensing fees after a German court said the carmaker had not made a serious attempt to resolve the issue with the Finnish company.

The spat highlights a wider battle between tech companies and the car industry over royalties for technologies used in navigation systems, vehicle communications and self-driving cars.

The Mannheim court in Germany said neither Daimler nor other parties involved in the case were “seriously prepared or ready to conclude a license agreement” with Nokia on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.

Daimler said it did not understand how the court could come to this conclusion and that it would appeal.

Nokia said the court confirmed it had acted in a fair way in licensing its cellular standard-essential patents (SEPs), and that Daimler was using Nokia technologies without authorisation.

“We hope that Daimler will now accept its obligations and take a license on fair terms,” Jenni Lukander, president of Nokia Technologies, said in a statement.

Nokia lost the first of its lawsuits against Daimler.

(Reporting by Anne Kauranen in Helsinki and Foo Yun Chee in Brussels, additional reporting by Ilona Wissenbach and Edward Taylor in Frankfurt; Editing by Jon Boyle and Mark Potter)