Apple's Royalty Payments to Nokia Estimated at $608 Million Up Front, ~$138 Million Per Quarter

And NOKIA changed it's business from phoneindustry giant to patent trolling >.

This should prop up their expected dismal (again) quarterly showing.

When your products suck ass because you were colossally negligent for nearly four years I guess you can live off royalties. Why not.

Again, please don't make false statements.

Apple wasn't paying, they got sued. Even macrumors posted this;

http://www.macrumors.com/2009/10/22/nokia-files-iphone-related-suit-against-apple-regarding-wireless-patents/

Update: According to the court filing posted by Digital Daily, Apple accuses Nokia of demanding unreasonable licensing terms, including reciprocal access to intellectual property owned by Apple, for a variety of its patents.

Through the present suit, Nokia has asserted unfounded claims of infringement and breached licensing commitments it made to license on F/RAND [Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory] terms all patents that it claimed were necessary for a party to practice standards. Nokia has also violated those licensing commitments by demanding unjustifiable royalties and reciprocal licenses to Apple's patents covering Apple's pioneering technology -- patents unrelated to any industry standard. This attempt by Nokia to leverage patents previously pledged to industry standards is an effort to free ride on the commercial success of Apple's innovative iPhone while avoiding liability for copying the iPhone and infringing Apple's patents.
Apple denies that any of Nokia's patents cited in its own lawsuit are "essential" to standards, but even if a court should rule any of the contested claims valid, Apple should be granted F/RAND licensing terms, which Nokia has refused to offer.

I admit that if Apple owed money to Nokia for use of their patents then they need to pay like anyone else. But that was never at issue.

If Nokia was asking for more than what everyone else was paying then we had a problem, in which case it was right for Apple to hold out.

I'm not sure what there was to "win" here when Apple would have had to pay Nokia something anyway. We all knew that. The only question was how much. That's what the dispute was about. Not whether Apple owed anything.

Not much of a contest to begin with, though. You've got an innovator at the top of their game, and then you've got an example of wilful negligence gone very bad. Nokia can use every cent they can get. Good for them. Better buyout bait at then end.

Some of you aren't getting it. There was a reason Apple held out on paying Nokia. It was never in dispute that they owed anything.

Most of Nokia's IP relates to international wireless standards, and the licensing of this particular IP, such as GSM, is a far different beast than other IP. There's really no way around *not* licensing it to others, and no way around others *not* having to use it.

There are, however, rules that the licensor of this IP must abide by, namely and in particularly under Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory terms, known as FRAND. As you can tell, this sort of thing doesn't at all apply to all IP. However, Nokia's is quite fundamental to the mobile industry, i.e., GSM. Nokia must license according to reasonable terms. The issue was, what was meant by Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory.

Apple alleged that Nokia's terms were *not* Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory whereas they are required to be. We don't know exactly hoe much Nokia was asking. We know that Apple did not have a lot of similar patents that Nokia had to license under FRAND, so we can just as well assume that they were asking for more than what Apple thought was justified.

Given that this cue didn't go on for very long, means that that one of the parties had to give in to the other. We really don't know who tapped out first. However, do note that Apple already had three of the patents excluded already. Further, one of the parties needed the deal (as in, money) more than the other, and given the early resolution, they needed the deal *now.*

Draw your own conclusions.