Vivo shuts down its online store in Germany after losing patent dispute to Nokia
Vivo Smartphones has closed its online store in Germany. This comes just a few months after OPPO and OnePlus did the same following a lawsuit from Nokia around a patent issue.
Nokia (not HMD Global, the makers Nokia of smartphones) accused vivo of infringing patents related to WLAN connections in its smartphones. This is actually the same reason why OPPO and OnePlus had to temporarily pull out from the German market.
The District Court of Mannheim, Germany ruled in Favor of Nokia in the lawsuit forcing the Chinese smartphone maker to shut down its online store.
The smartphone maker had mentioned that it was still negotiating a renewal of the patent licensing agreement with Nokia, but is ready to suspend sales and marketing of affected products should the court order it to do so, GSMA reports.
This latest development now means German consumers can no longer buy a vivo smartphone in the country. A visit to the website greets you with a message vivo’s products are indeed not available at the moment.
”Accordingly, no product information is available on our German website. If you use a vivo product, you can continue to rely on our customer service. You will also receive future software updates.” the message reads.
Important to also note that this patent lawsuit comes from the Finnish branch of Nokia, which deals with equipment supply and not HMD Global which owns the Nokia smartphone business.
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