Finally peace between Nokia and Apple, regarding long-running legal dispute between the two firms

Nokia and Apple eventually decided to end the long battle about patent dispute, and coming up with a technology licensing agreement which will  end the long-running legal dispute between the two companies.

"The agreement will result in settlement of all patent litigation between the companies," Nokia said.
Nokia said Apple had agreed a one-off payment, the value of which was not disclosed, and continuous royalties to use its technologies.


Nokia sued Apple for patent infringements in 2009 and extended the action in December last year. However this outcome  could lead to same accuses from Nokia to be repeated to  phones using Google's Android software over the same set of patents it has just licensed, suggests one observer.
Apple had countersued, accusing Nokia of infringing its patents.



Nokia's chief executive Stephen Elop said on the firm's legal success: "We are very pleased to have Apple join the growing number of Nokia licensees."

"This settlement demonstrates Nokia's industry-leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market."

Apple stated that two companies had agreed to "drop all of our current lawsuits and enter into a licence covering some of each other's patents, but not the majority of the innovations that make the iPhone unique".

"We're pleased to put this behind us and get back to focusing on our respective businesses."

Nokia's several claims against Apple included alleged patent infringements of touch interfaces, caller ID, display illumination, and 3G and wi-fi technologies.

Apple had additionally claimed that Nokia had infringed many of its patents.

Both sides had always denied each other's claims.

"This is the first positive news from Nokia for a long time. They can both focus on their businesses now, and the dispute was settled to Nokia's advantage," said Mikael Rautanen at research group Inderes in Helsinki.

At the end of last month, Nokia said it expected sales and profit margins for the current quarter to be well below its previous forecasts.

Nokia has been struggling to reposition themselves in the rapidly-growing smartphone market, where it is attempting to make up ground lost to rivals such as Apple's iPhone and mobile phones using Google's Android operating system.