Nokia might not be able to make more smartphones, but it still owns a sizable amount of related patents, which it licenses to various companies-- with LG being the latest to pay royalties for in order to use.
"We are pleased to welcome LG Electronics to our licensing program," Nokia says. "We've worked constructively with LG Electronics and agreed to a mutually beneficial approach, including the use of independent arbitration to resolve any differences. This agreement sets the scene for further collaboration between our companies in future."
LG is actually the first company to join the patent licensing program since the Nokia devices and services business was sold off to Microsoft for $7.2 billion back in 2014.
Nokia owns over 30000 mobile-related patents covering 2G, 3G and 4G communications technologies, and names over 60 companies as licensees. LG does not specify the patents it is licensing, but the deal involves an arbitration clause-- meaning the two companies are still working out how much the royalties for said patents are worth, but LG has the right to use the technologies in the meantime.