Bangalore: Nokia might have sold its handset business to Microsoft Corp, but the company will be retaining its valuable patent profile to get a big payoff at the expense of Android phone makers, as reported by Reuters.

After making a 3.79 billion Euro deal for Nokia’s ownership, Microsoft has also agreed on a 10-year license deal for Nokia’s patents by paying an extra sum of 1.65 billion Euros.

“This involves the right to, in effect, make use of Nokia’s inventions”, claimed Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith. “It doesn’t involve the transfer or ownership of the patents itself.”

Nokia has always preferred using its patents as a tool to protect its handset business against competitors and has not extensively licensed most of them unlike now, said Nokia spokesman Mark Durrant in an email to Reuters.

“Once we no longer have our own mobile devices business, following the close of the (Microsoft) transaction, we would be able to explore licensing some of those technologies,” he added.

Nokia was once the world’s dominant handset maker, but it has closely missed out on the mark opened up by Apple and Samsung Electronics in the highly competitive tech industry. The company now plans to build a concrete networking equipment unit, navigation business and technology patents.

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