Intellectual property (IP) investment and advisory services firm Pendrell today announced that it has 125 global patents and patent applications from struggling phone manufacturer Nokia.
The portfolio covers a range of ‘foundational’ memory technologies for electronic devices, according to a press release.
Nokia has declared 81 of the 125 patents and applications to be “essential to applicable standards”, which evidently renders them more valuable.
From the announcement:
These global patent portfolios represent intellectual property developed over more than 15 years of pioneering research and development by Nokia in this field, covering secure digital (SD) cards, embedded flash and universal flash storage capabilities.
The global market for these combined memory technologies is projected to exceed $12 billion in 2013, and industry analysts project the market for SD cards alone to exceed $21 billion in 2018.
And:
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Nokia has been a pioneer in the development and evolution of portable and embedded memory technologies, which are used in an estimated 8,000 different consumer electronics devices by more than 400 brands worldwide, including mobile phones, laptop computers, MP3 players, tablets, digital cameras, video recorders, printers, set top boxes and others.
Pendrell has created a subsidiary dubbed Helsinki Memory Technologies as a holding company for the newly acquired IP and says it will “enable broader use of these technologies via a global licensing program”.
Nokia will receive a license to all of the patents acquired by the company, as well as to new IP that will be developed by Helsinki Memory Technologies in the future.
Furthermore, proceeds from patent licensing involving the memory portfolios will be partially reinvested to fund ‘continuing development efforts’.
Paul Melin, chief intellectual property officer for Nokia, comments:
“We are pleased that our patent sale to Pendrell has enabled the launch of Helsinki Memory Technologies here in Finland to continue the fundamental research and development work that Nokia has done over the past fifteen years.
We expect that Pendrell’s world-class expertise in IP strategy and licensing will also create a meaningful path to further commercialization of these technologies, with proceeds enabling continuing investment in R&D by Helsinki Memory Technologies.”
Helsinki Memory Technologies’ R&D program will be based in Finland and will be led by Kimmo Mylly, a technologist and inventor who previously led Nokia’s memory technologies program.
Also read:
Nokia’s comeback suffers a blow as it is dropped from the Euro Stoxx 50 Index
Nokia sells its Oulu campus to Finnish business space provider Technopolis for $40.8 million
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