Why Vivo and Oppo are leaving the German market: Patent disputes with Nokia

• Vivo is closing shop in Germany
• A patent dispute with Finnish Nokia is to blame
• For the same reasons, Oppo also ended in Germany

The mobile brands belonging to the BBK Electronics conglomerate are not having their day full of roses, at least in Europe. The Finnish company Nokia has decided to defend its rights and vigorously suppress the abuse of its own patents by Oppo, OnePlus and Vivo brands. So far, the European courts have found her to be right.

Vivo is closing down in Germany

Not long ago, news spread across the Internet that Oppo has definitively shut down its web store in Germany, or removed all mentions of hardware products from it. All you will read on the website is that Oppo is a proud sponsor of the Champions League and the addition that devices already sold will continue to work, including software updates.

The same fate has now befallen the Vivo brand. The company was forced to stop selling all smartphones and other devices in Germany following an April ruling by the district court in Mannheim, which resulted in the removal of all products from the German version of the site this week. Like Oppo, Vivo notes on its website that service and software support will continue to work for existing devices.

The Mainnheim court found Vivo guilty of misusing the intellectual property of Finland’s Nokia, specifically using patented technologies related to wireless connectivity. Vivo apparently got into this mess like its sister brand Oppo – it had a patent license agreement with Nokia that ran from 2018 to June 2021, but after its expiration, the Chinese company happily continued to use Nokia’s technology without paying the Finnish company.

Interestingly, both Oppo and Vivo brands are playing dead, preferring to voluntarily withdraw from Germany rather than agreeing with Nokia. And not only from Germany, Oppo is quietly withdrawing from France as well, although officially it pretends that nothing is happening. According to the informant Max Jambor, Oppo will soon leave Great Britain and the Netherlands, where the courts will probably also rule in favor of Nokia.