Nokia ready to sell patents if price is right

Nokia recently revealed a number of major structural changes in order to raise income and cut its expenses, which include selling the luxury phone maker Vertu and slashing its workforce by up to 10 000 positions globally by the end of 2013.

The Finnish giant’s chief financial officer Timo Ihamuotila has also revealed that Espoo is ready to generate additional funds, by selling its intellectual property rights (IPR) for the “right price”. Ihamuotila added that Nokia, which currently holds a considerable patent portfolio that consists of 30 000 patents and another 10 000 patented innovations, can sell some of its patents and still be able to maintain a large IP portfolio.

This is due to the fact that the firm’s research and development operations push out an average of 1000 patentable innovations every year. Patents can be an effective revenue generating tool, with Nokia announcing during its most recent fiscal quarter (Q1 2012) that its IPR royalty income run-rate for that quarter was around half a billion Euros.  

Nokia may also be able to add to that royalty income later this year since it filed patent claims in the US and Germany last month, via which the company alleges that products from HTC, BlackBerry holding company RIM (Research In Motion) and Viewsonic infringe upon a number of its patents.

The structural changes Nokia recently made were a result amongst others, of the pressure that the company has come under due to Samsung and Apple’s dominance of the smartphone market, as well the slow pace of Windows Phone OS’ consumer adoption.

Companies such as ABI Research have stated that Nokia will have to grow its Windows Phone OS business, by a whopping 5000% during the rest of 2012, just to offset its declines in Symbian shipments.

In related news, market research company IDC recently stated that it expected Android smartphone shipments to peak within 2012 as mobile shipments slow, and Windows Phone OS to take second place on the smartphone OS podium by 2016. This expectation hinges on Nokia’s continued strength within key emerging markets.