In Oppo vs Nokia case, India's Supreme Court takes important step

In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed Chinese smartphone brand Oppo’s plea against a Delhi High Court order which directed the company to deposit 23 per cent of the amount generated from its sales in the country for infringing upon Nokia’s patent.

A division bench of the Delhi High Court passed the order in July after it found that the Chinese smartphone brand was using Nokia’s technology without the requisite consent. The HC had reached the 23 percent penalty figure after taking into account Oppo’s sales in India which is around 23 percent of its global sales.

A Nokia Technologies spokesperson said in a statement that they welcome the Supreme Court decision. “Oppo has been unwilling to renew its license on fair and reasonable terms or resolve the matter amicably and has used our technology without making any royalty payments for two years,” a Nokia spokesperson said.

Courts in India, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, and Brazil have all given their verdicts in Nokia’s favour.

“Once again, we encourage Oppo to play by the rules, and like its competitors, agree to a license on fair and reasonable terms, rather than continue to operate without one,” said Nokia.

Oppo secured a licence from Nokia in 2018 for using some of the Finnish telecom gear company’s technology for three years. Nokia alleged that after the expiry of the pact, OPPO sold around 77 million devices in India without paying a single rupee in royalty, according to reports.

In July 2022, a German court decided a suit in favour of the smartphone brand Nokia in its 4G/5G patent dispute against Oppo. According to GizmoChina, the suit had resulted from the breakdown in discussions between Nokia and OPPO over 4G (LTE) and 5G patents. Nokia had sued OPPO over nine Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) and five implementation patents in three regional German Courts. Nokia is the standard-bearer in the 5G SEPs segment with huge investments of about $130.3 billion.

— IANS