What just happened? Reddit has received some unwelcome news ahead of its initial public offering (IPO) this week. Nokia Technologies, the famous phone company’s licensing and networking equipment business, has accused the social media platform of infringing on some of its patents.
Nokia Technologies sent Reddit a letter on Monday informing the company of the claim, according to an amended SEC filing made on Tuesday. “As we face increasing competition and become increasingly high profile, the possibility of receiving more intellectual property claims against us grows,” Reddit said in the filing.
Bloomberg notes that this isn’t Nokia’s first patent dispute. It reached a patent agreement with Chinese phone maker Oppo in January, ending a fight that had endured for years and forced Oppo and OnePlus to halt sales in Germany.
Nokia also settled a dispute with Daimler in 2021 over the licensing of wireless technology patents in cars that had threatened the sale of Mercedes in its home country of Germany.
Going back further, BlackBerry was ordered to pay Nokia $137 million in 2017 over a patent contract dispute, and it was in a legal battle with Apple related to IP use that led to a multi-year patent license, also signed in 2017.
Nokia said that between 1984 and 2014, it invested more than €50 billion ($54.3 billion) to create a portfolio of 30,000 patents and patent applications, which have been generating the company a sizeable income for years.
In February, it was reported that Reddit had signed a contract in early 2024 with Google granting the tech firm permission to train its AI models using the platform’s subject matter. The deal is said to be worth around $60 million per year.
The Google licensing deal attracted the attention of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which said it planned to conduct a non-public inquiry into Reddit’s practices concerning the sale, licensing, or sharing of user-generated content.
Reddit is targeting a valuation of $6.5 billion for its IPO. Reuters writes that it is between four and five times oversubscribed, making it much more likely to attain the target valuation. It is expected to debut on the New York Stock Exchange on March 21.
