London 9 August, London : The world’s largest smartphone maker OPPO as well as its subsidiary OnePlus have stopped the sales of smartwatches and smartphones in Germany after losing a patent suit against Finnish Nokia, a telecoms player.Nokia.Nokia has accused Nokia of using its patent-pending technology to process signals from 4G and 5G without having to pay for a licence.
Nokia obtained an injunction stopping sales in an German tribunal last week.
The companies informed The Verge on Tuesday that they had stopped sales in Germany and blamed “Nokia’s request for an unreasonable high price” in patents as the cause of the lawsuit.
“We are currently working with the parties involved to resolve the legal issue,” a OnePlus spokesperson stated in an announcement.
“OnePlus is dedicated to the German market and will continue to operate in the German market.While we’re at it, OnePlus users in Germany will continue to benefit from our products and services like regular software updates as well as our after-sales service like prior,” the spokesperson said.
A OPPO spokesperson spoke to European patent news website JUVE Patent that as the owner of numerous patents in the 5G area, “OPPO respects the value of intellectual property in the field of innovation to a very large degree”.
“The day following the 4G agreement between OPPO and Nokia expired, Nokia immediately went to the court.
Nokia had already demanded an unreasonable high renewal fee for the contract,” the company spokesperson added.
The Europe smartphone market slowed by 11 percent (on-year) as well as 13 percent (on-quarter) in the 40 million unit range in Q2 of this year, the lowest level since Q2 2020.
Xiaomi and OPPO affected by China lockdowns, saw double-digit YoY drops in their respective sales, according to Counterpoint Research.
realme continues its European expansion with double-digit YoY shipment expansion in Q2.
na/
