On July 23, 2008, the first day of trial in Chancery Court in Wilmington, Delaware, Qualcomm Inc. and Nokia Corp. entered into a settlement agreement that ended the Delaware lawsuit and resolved all litigation between the parties around the world. As part of the settlement, Qualcomm and Nokia have agreed to a landmark license agreement covering multiple technologies and extending until 2022. Nokia also agreed to withdraw its competition complaint pending before the European Commission. Cravath defended Qualcomm in an action brought by Nokia Corp., alleging that Qualcomm breached its undertaking to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to be prepared to license Qualcomm’s patents essential to the GSM and UMTS wireless standards on “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” (FRAND) terms. The new license agreement includes an up-front payment to Qualcomm, and running royalties through 2022 on products practicing a number of standards, including CDMA2000, UMTS, and so-called “4G” technologies including OFDM, WiMAX and LTE. In addition, Nokia agreed not to assert any of its patents directly against Qualcomm, enabling Qualcomm to integrate Nokia’s technology into Qualcomm’s chipsets. Nokia also transferred a significant portfolio of patents to Qualcomm, including patents declared as essential to standards including GSM, SCDMA and OFDMA.
The lawyers involved were partners Evan R. Chesler, Roger G. Brooks, Darin P. McAtee and Richard J. Stark, associates Richard Corey Worcester, James G. Hein, Rajeev K. Adlakha, Jessica L. Selb, Jennifer E. Sturiale, Emily O. Famutimi, Jeffrey G. Paik, Jared B. Shirck, Sarah E. Trombley, Pierre J. Bouchard, Dashene A. Cooper, Andrej Lang and Sarita Prabhu, senior discovery attorney Paget Gross and discovery attorneys Thomas M. Gorman and Heather C. Sivert.