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maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 24 MAY 2017 11 Business Today www.creditinfo.com.mt info@creditinfo.com.mt Tel: 2131 2344 Your Local Partner for Credit Risk Management Solutions Supporting you all the way Apple and Nokia settle patent dispute Oil prices rise as decision to extend cuts looms Apple and Nokia have settled a dispute over the use of patented technology in smartphones and agreed to "co-operate." The deal will see Apple make a sizeable one-off payment, as well as future fees, for the use of Nokia's technology. Analysts estimated the deal was worth hundreds of millions of pounds to Nokia, sending shares up by 7%. In December, Nokia sued Apple claiming the company had breached 32 technology patents covering displays, user interfaces and video encoding. The two companies have now signed a deal allowing Apple to use the technology, and Nokia will receive an up-front cash payment. The company suffered immensely at the hands of the iPhone, and no longer makes handsets after selling its mobile business to Microsoft in 2013. While most of its revenue comes from telecoms infrastructure, it is seeking to bolster income from the valuable patents it still retains from its days as the world's dominant mobile phone company. After a long-running deal with Apple expired last year, Nokia sued it for violating 32 patents used in the iPhone. Apple sued back, calling Nokia a "patent troll" and saying it had refused to license the technology on a fair basis. Yesterday, the companies said they had settled all litigation and reached a new agreement. Apple will also stock Nokia's health products in its retail stores. "The agreement is per year, so it's probably in the hundreds of millions of dollars range," Keith Mallinson, an industry analyst as Wiseharbor said. "That's partly because it covers many patents, and Nokia has some very important ones, they were one of the pioneers of cellular standards. "But looking at Apple's business... one industry estimate is that they made $140bn revenue on iPhone sales in 2016. "Even a small royalty against that - less than 1% - would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars." Nokia said it was "looking forward to supporting Apple", while Apple's Jeff Williams said the company was "pleased with this resolution of our dispute". Between 2009 and 2011, the two companies were locked in a series of legal battles over the patents for the technology they used in their mobile phones. At the time, Nokia was still the world's leading mobile phone manufacturer, but was being rapidly undermined by the rise of Apple's iPhone. Oil prices rose yesterday as expectations of an extension to OPEC-led supply cuts supported prices, reversing losses earlier in the session after a White House proposal suggested selling off half the country's huge oil stockpile. Brent crude LCOc1 traded up 7 cents at $53.94 per barrel after a low of $53.20. US light crude CLc1 was up 10 cents at $51.23. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, led by Saudi Arabia, and other producers including Russia meet on May 25. They are expected to extend a pledge to cut output by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd), possibly until March 2018. The cuts were initially agreed to last six months until the end of June. Kuwaiti Oil Minister Essam al-Marzouq said on Tuesday not all OPEC countries and its allies supported a nine-month extension and producers would discuss this week whether to extend output cuts by a six or nine months. But other delegates told Reuters they predicted a smooth meeting with a nine-month extension likely to be agreed. "OPEC meets on Thursday amid increasing optimism that the production cuts agreed last November will be rolled over and most likely to the end of 1Q18," Colin Smith, analyst at Panmure, said in a note on Tuesday, adding he expected a rollover would "likely deliver a significant tightening of the market." Earlier in the session oil prices dropped on the White House plan to sell off half of the nation's 688 million-barrel oil stockpile from 2018 to 2027 aims to raise $16.5 billion and help balance the budget. The budget, to be delivered to Congress on Tuesday, is only a proposal and may not take effect in its current form.