RIM loses patent battle to Nokia, either needs to pay up or remove WI-FI from phones

RIM suffered a blow today after losing a patent battle that was in arbitration in Sweden.

The venue ruled  ”RIM was in breach of contract and is not entitled to manufacture or sell WLAN products without first agreeing royalties with Nokia,”

In a statement Nokia said:

Nokia and RIM agreed a cross-license for standards essential cellular patents in 2003, which was amended in 2008. In 2011, RIM sought arbitration, arguing that the license extended beyond cellular essentials. In November, the arbitration tribunal ruled against RIM. It found that RIM was in breach of contract and is not entitled to manufacture or sell WLAN products without first agreeing royalties with Nokia. In order to enforce the Tribunal’s ruling, we have now filed actions in the US, UK and Canada with the aim of ending RIM’s breach of contract.

The ruling covers all BlackBerry devices and will only add to RIM’s troubles as it struggles to launch its new Blackberry 10 OS.

Via BGR