RIM has paid Nokia $65 million to settle what may be the saddest slap-fight of a patent war in recent memory by forking over an amount that would just cover Google's annual budget for employee sleeping pods, yoga classes and on-campus massages.
The Financial Times reported the specifics of the recent agreement, which appeared in documents RIM filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The $65 million settlement puts to rest the ongoing dispute over RIM's use of Wi-Fi in its mobile devices. Nokia had filed suit against RIM in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, trying to have the BlackBerry maker adhere to the ruling of a Swedish arbitration ruling.
The two companies reached an agreement in December, but the terms were not disclosed. According to analysts contacted by the Financial Times, RIM could also be on the hook to pay Nokia an additional $2 to $5 per handset sold -- a potentially larger hit to RIM's bottom line.
Nokia has aggressively defended its patent portfolio while its handset business has fallen on tough times. The former king of cellphones has hitched its smartphone wagon to Microsoft's less-than-stellar-selling Windows Phone platform in a bid to recapture some of market lost to Apple and Google's mobile offerings.
Like Nokia, RIM has been losing market share since the introduction of the iPhone and Android devices. The company is betting on the BlackBerry 10 operation system and its devices to reverse the current trend. BlackBerry 10 will launch at the end of January.
