Microsoft Reveals The Set of Commitments It Made To Chinese Ministry Of Commerce To Get Nokia Deal Approved

Earlier today, we reportedthat Chinese Ministry of Commerce has approved Nokia’s sale of Devices and Services division to Microsoft. Nokia specifically mentioned that Chinese Ministry of Commerce didn’t approve the deal on any specific conditions. On the other side, Microsoft today revealed that they have made set of commitments the Chinese Ministry of Commerce regarding patents. During the investigation to approve this deal, MOFCOM concluded that Microsoft holds approximately 200 patent families that are necessary to build an Android smartphone. Basically, Microsoft has committed that they will license all standard essential patents to others on FRAND terms.

MOFCOM’s approval is based on a set of commitments which we’ve discussed with MOFCOM during the past few months. There was an important principle with which MOFCOM approached these discussions from the beginning: any commitments should be focused on how our future conduct might change after we own the Nokia Devices and Services business, and should not impact our licenses signed in the past or historical practices. It has never been our intent to change our practices after we acquire the Nokia business, so while we disagreed with the premise that our incentives might change in the future, we were happy to discuss commitments on this basis.

You can read the English version of the commitments is here.