Nokia expands streaming patent licensing through Snap deal and UK trial
Nokia announced multiple new patent licensing agreements for various technologies, including video. Key deals involve Hisense and other TV makers for video technologies, and a pending UK trial to set global licensing terms for Warner Bros. and Paramount streaming services. The company also signed agreements with Snap Inc. and other social messaging firms for video streaming, alongside cellular and Wi-Fi patent deals with Chinese automakers.
Key Takeaways
- Snap Inc. and an undisclosed messaging company have signed Nokia's first social-vertical patent licenses.
- Bilateral licensing agreements have been reached with 12 Chinese automakers including a recent settlement with Geely.
- Hisense and other TV manufacturers have signed deals covering Nokia's video compression and delivery technologies.
- A UK court trial scheduled for late 2026 will fix global licensing rates for WBD and Paramount streaming services.
- IoT vertical expansion includes new connectivity deals with ADT and major residential security and elevator firms.
Why It Matters
Nokia is aggressively pivoting its licensing strategy from hardware-centric cellular patents to the software-driven multimedia stack. By securing deals with Snap and targeting major streamers like Max and Paramount+, Nokia is asserting its position as a primary landlord of video coding and content delivery IP. The upcoming UK trial is a high-stakes moment for the ecosystem; a favorable ruling would provide Nokia a court-mandated valuation that could force other holdout streaming platforms into bilateral agreements. Watch for the December 2028 functional freeze of 6G specifications, which Nokia aims to influence with AI-native and high-bandwidth multimedia standards.
Additional Context
The expansion of Nokia's multimedia licensing program follows a landmark March 2025 global settlement with Amazon, which effectively ended a multi-jurisdiction legal battle over video streaming technologies used in Prime Video, Twitch, and Fire TV devices. Per StreamingMedia (March 2026), that settlement was the first major instance of a tier-1 streamer paying content-related royalties, signaling that service-level streaming functionality is no longer immune to patent enforcement. In January 2026, the UK High Court ordered an expedited 15-day trial to determine global Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) rates for Nokia's video portfolio. This occurred after Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount sought court-determined rates to counter Nokia's pursuit of injunctions in other territories including Brazil and Germany. Per Juve Patent (April 2026), Nokia subsequently withdrew its pending actions in the Unified Patent Court and Munich to focus on this centralized UK rate-setting procedure.
Simultaneously, the industry is navigating a fragmented codec landscape. In February 2026, the Avanci Video platform, which manages patents from over 40 licensors including Nokia, signed its first anonymous global streaming licensee. According to StreamingMedia Global (February 2026), Avanci offers royalty rates of up to 2% of revenue or $0.15 per user, representing a shift toward standardizing payments for codecs like HEVC and VVC. While Nokia pursues bilateral deals with companies like Snap Inc., the emergence of competing pools like Access Advance—launched in January 2025—indicates that major streaming providers must now manage overlapping royalty demands covering traditional delivery and next-generation AI-powered compression.
Read full article at nokia.com
Enjoy our coverage?
Add StreamingMeme as a preferred source on Google to see more of our streaming news at the top of your Search results.
Add as preferred source