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‘Patent troll’ accusations unfair, based on incorrect assumptions

by Ilkka Rahnasto, head of patent business, Nokia Technologies, and Dhiren Patel, head of IPR licensing, Nokia Networks - 05/26/15 6:54 PM ET

We wanted to address comments made about Nokia in Steven Titch’s Congress Blog post in The Hill on May 5 (“ ‘Transformer’ patent trolls present latest threat to innovation”).

As a company that continues to invest billions of dollars in R&D across our businesses, any assertion that Nokia is shifting away from manufacturing to “patent stockpiling” is wrong. Through pioneering research built on more than $87 billion in R&D over two decades, we’ve helped establish the essential technologies for the whole of the mobile communications industry including networks, as well as many innovations for smartphones, mobile computing, navigation and other technologies that enable a connected world. Through active participation in the work to set industry standards in many of these areas, we’ve enabled others to enter the market without the same up-front investment, establishing a legitimate licensing program for our standards-essential patents.

{mosads}Much of the media discussion with regard to “patent trolls” has focused on alleged abusive behaviors of patent owners to attract excessive licensee fees. Less widely reported is that only a minority of those who need a license for essential patents voluntarily and proactively seek to obtain one. We are increasingly seeing potential licensees using abusive practices to avoid payment for valuable patents they practice, seeking to weaken patent protection to reduce their costs.

Nokia does not approve of either of these practices. We believe that the legitimate exercise of the rights of owners of breakthrough technologies is vital in ensuring the flow of innovation and consumer choice.

Mr. Titch also seems critical of the sale of patents by patent owners. There is significant cost involved in maintaining large patent portfolios, and so divesting to an interested party in the legitimate secondary market is a common, reasonable practice. Nokia’s businesses manage portfolios covering around 14,000 patent families. With ongoing R&D delivering hundreds of new, patentable inventions every year, focused divestments have been part of our strategy. But in all cases, licensees who had already agreed to terms with us continued to benefit from their license and acquiring parties assumed the same commitments made to license essential patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.

Nokia is proud of its heritage as an innovator and of its business practices. We believe that we deserve better than being unfairly attacked on the basis of incorrect assumptions.

From Ilkka Rahnasto, head of patent business, Nokia Technologies, and Dhiren Patel, head of IPR licensing, Nokia Networks, Espoo, Finland

To protect democracy, we can’t give in to enemies of free speech

I enjoyed reading and agree with Katie Pavlich’s May 4 column “Jihad comes to Texas.” The right to speak freely without the fear of persecution is the cornerstone of our democracy. If we restrict free speech, either blatantly or covertly, regardless of the issue, we cheat our citizenry of the opportunity to debate critical issues such as Islamic extremism and we acquiesce to terrorists, which will only make matters worse.

The recent attempt to repeat the savage murders at Charlie Hebdo in Paris here in the U.S. demonstrates that the enemies of free speech will continue their relentless attack on our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms as they seek to destroy our democracy. We must cease being afraid of offending those who do not seek dialogue or mutual understanding with us for the sake of political correctness.

From Michael Pravica, Henderson, Nev.