Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V) got some strong support in its ongoing royalty arbitration case with Samsung from a disclosure by Microsoft Corporation (NYSE:MSFT) over the weekend. JPMorgan Cazenove‘s Equity Research Europe’s October 6th Tech Snippets highlights that Microsoft disclosed on Saturday that Samsung paid Microsoft intellectual property-related royalties of around $3.50 per smartphone/tablet in 2013.
JPMorgan Cazenove analysts Sandeep Deshpande and Chetan Udeshi argue that this disclosure is very good news for Nokia, as this implies a higher than expected 1% plus royalty.
Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V)/Samsung arbitration decision due in mid-2015
In a September 15th report, Oppenheimer analyst Ittai Kidron notes that a precedent-setting decision on the arbitration of a licensing agreement between Nokia and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (KRX:005930)
is due within the next few quarters. “Samsung is another key licensee having agreed to a five-year license agreement starting from December 31, 2013. However, the final terms of that agreement are yet to be determined with an arbitration ruling expected sometime in 2015. Once it is finalized Samsung will pay additional compensation to Nokia for the period commencing from January 1, 2014 onwards and set a baseline, in our opinion, for what Nokia can pursue with other key mobile device vendors such as Apple and the growing Chinese Android vendor base.”
Microsoft disclosure strengthens Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V)’s position
Deshpande and Udeshi argue that this disclosure from Microsoft makes it possible for Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V) to put forward a stronger case to arbitrators who are determining the amount of the fee Samsung has to pay Nokia to license its standard essential and non essential IP in its smartphones. These new licensing fee disclosures from Microsoft will help Nokia argue for even higher fees than those Microsoft receives because Nokia owns the IP for a number of key software innovations on smartphones as well as protocol standard essential patents.
