319: Chapter 319 Nokia, the Fence-Sitter

On April 21, 2013, another massive piece of news rocked the tech circle.

Nokia is suing Transsion for patent infringement!

But the lawsuit did not come as a surprise; ever since Transsion and Huawei achieved certain technological breakthroughs, Nokia had been experiencing a steady decline.

It wasn't because Transsion was making phones, but because Transsion had begun to gradually close its ecosystem. In particular, their new generation of communication basebands used a self-developed protocol stack, meaning they were no longer paying patent fees.

Although the patent licensing period between the two companies hadn't ended yet, Transsion had already stopped paying.

Ever since Nokia began its downward spiral, their revenue had primarily come from patent fees, and more than half of that came from communication-related patents.

Transsion stopped paying, and Huawei stopped paying.

Honor, that subsidiary brand, naturally stopped paying as well.

In all of China, only Vivo, Oppo, and Xiaomi were still paying, though they too were looking for ways to avoid it. Nokia's patent fee model was being cracked open by Transsion.

At the same time, there was an additional hidden hand helping behind the scenes.

Ultimately, the lawsuits were filed simultaneously in Germany, England, and the Netherlands that morning.

Nokia claimed that Transsion infringed on dozens of their patents, covering core essential patents for 2G, 3G, and 4G.

The Dutch court acted the fastest, issuing an injunction within a day, and Transsion phones were pulled from shelves in the Netherlands.

At the same time, the injunction against Huawei was also under review.

Li Qing then pushed the door open with the indictment in hand and placed the paper in front of Shen Fei.

"Boss, the United States has made another move, but this time, the unlucky little guy is Nokia."

"They are suing in three countries. Currently, the Netherlands has already pulled our phones from the shelves, and the United States is urging the other two countries to do the same."

Shen Fei picked up a cup of hot tea, picked up the indictment, and flipped to the first page to read for a while. Then, he laughed!

Li Qing instantly calmed down upon seeing this. Having worked in the professional field for so many years, whenever he saw his boss smile like this, it meant someone was about to be in trouble.

"Boss, do you have a good idea?"

"No, I'm just laughing at Nokia."

Shen Fei closed the indictment, set it aside, picked up his teacup, took a sip, and cleared his throat.

Huang Tianya leaned over from the side.

"Boss, it's time to settle the score with Nokia, isn't it?"

A smile appeared on Huang Tianya's face; he hadn't spent little time targeting Nokia recently.

Ever since finalizing the patent licensing, Huang Tianya had been continuously selling off his shares in Nokia, reducing his holdings from a peak of 7.58% all the way down to 1.5%.

In between, he also did a little shorting... then repeatedly increased his positions, and currently only 3.2% of the shares remained.

Considering his playstyle, Nokia's surrender to the United States was actually understandable.

"It is time to settle the score. 3.2% of the shares is enough to be a major shareholder; some people should start listening to our opinions."

Huang Tianya grinned. "3.2% isn't the largest stake, but it's enough to slam the table in the boardroom. That's how they like to do things over there!"

"Our greatest weapon has never been shares."

Shen Fei walked back to his seat and took a document out of the drawer.

"Motorola's patent library, Qualcomm's licensing, and MediaTek's cross-patents—Nokia also has a share in some of these. Plus, what we've acquired..."

Everyone smiled knowingly. Infringing on Nokia? No, it should be said that Nokia is infringing.

"Boss, let's directly countersue Nokia. Since they want to be fence-sitters, let's give them the final blow. Motorola has already been sold, and even changed hands once; Nokia's mobile business should be sold too."

At this moment, Huang Tianya was already calculating how to act as the middleman. After all, selling Motorola had earned them over 4 billion, but finding another "big sucker" like that wouldn't be easy.

LX had already proven that the success of the Motorola S-series wasn't because of the four characters "Motorola," but because of the extreme technology! However, this acquisition wasn't a loss; at the very least, they had opened up a broader international market.

Finally, Shen Fei closed the document, and everyone smiled knowingly in unison. Since they want to play the patent game, let's see whose patent library is bigger. Dozens of patents? That's too petty!

This afternoon, the Transsion Legal Department held an emergency meeting. Deputy General Counsel Zhao Mingyuan was in charge of this transnational patent lawsuit.

He and his team spent two hours sorting through Transsion's patent assets. Whether it was standard essential patents or ordinary patents, he checked them all carefully and thoroughly.

"We might not need them when filing the suit, but we can't be unable to find them when the judge asks us to submit evidence!"

After calculating, he felt confident!

"Boss, we have many usable communication patents in our hands—definitely among the best in the world. If we were to license them, we would be world number one. We have sufficient grounds to countersue for the items Nokia is suing us for. Furthermore, they have infringed on at least 120 of our core patents."

Shen Fei sat in his chair, slowly reading the report. Soon, his face lit up with joy, revealing a playful expression.

"120 items. That's enough, and it's not a small number. If they can pull our products off the shelves with a few dozen, we can do the same."

"At the same time, countersue in Germany, England, France, and several other countries simultaneously. The legal department should handle as many cases as they can at once. Also, file a lawsuit in China simultaneously; let them taste the feeling of being pulled from the shelves."

The next morning, the Transsion Technology official website immediately released a statement.

"Nokia is abusing its market dominance and using fabricated patent infringement allegations to attempt to obstruct Transsion's normal operations in the European market. Transsion will file a countersuit in accordance with the law to protect its legitimate rights and interests. At the same time, Transsion is formally reporting Nokia to the European Union antitrust authorities."

At that time, Transsion formally filed countersuits in the relevant countries, demanding that the relevant countries immediately revoke the injunctions against Transsion and order Nokia to pay damages. The total damages amounted to 180 million euros.

China's counterattack was equally swift, announcing the case filing immediately. Relevant departments conducted publicity simultaneously, and the Patent Office posted the names of the infringed patents at 1:00 PM...

The relevant departments also pointed out that this patent was not within the scope of the two companies' patent licensing, so they directly initiated the sales prohibition process. After all, China is relatively formal.

Once the news broke, it instantly hit the trending searches.

"Damn, why is everyone saying we are suppressing the United States? Anyone with eyes can see that Nokia was used as a tool from start to finish. The essence is still the continuation of the tech ban. But since he played this pawn, it's not a loss..."

"Tch, people who understand! I was still saying that others were going through the normal patent rights protection process, but it turns out a certain infringer always plays the patriotic card, and then Nokia gets restricted. The 'vision' is really too 'big' [Dog head to save my life! Transsion, don't ban my account]"