Nokia says German court rules in its favour in Amazon patent dispute

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HELSINKI (Reuters) -A German court has ruled that Amazon is using Nokia’s patented video technologies without a licence, the Finnish network equipment maker and telecommunications patent holder said on Friday.

In a statement, Nokia’s Chief Licensing Officer Arvin Patel said the Munich Regional Court ruled Amazon was using “Nokia’s patented video-related technologies in its end-user streaming devices and is selling them illegally without a licence”.

Amazon said it disagreed with the court’s decision and expected the situation to be resolved soon, without being specific.

“This ruling will not affect any existing customers and a wide selection of Fire TV devices will continue to be available on Amazon,” Amazon said in an emailed statement to Reuters, adding it was disappointed by Nokia’s actions.

Amazon said it had worked with a number of companies to license video patents.

“Nokia is demanding more than all those companies combined and has rejected our offer, which was fair and in line with market rates,” Amazon said.

In July, Amazon sued Nokia in a Delaware federal court, accusing the Finnish group of infringing a dozen Amazon patents related to cloud-computing technology.

Nokia initiated the litigation against Amazon over the use of Nokia’s patented multimedia inventions in 2023 in Germany, India, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the European Unified Patent Court, it said in a blog post at the time.

“We hope that Amazon accepts its obligations and agrees a licence on fair terms,” it said on Friday.

Contacted by Reuters, the German court was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Anne Kauranen in Helsinki and Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm, additional reporting by Matthias Williams, editing by Terje Solsvik and Barbara Lewis)