Many Nokia design patents used on Windows Phone now owned by HMD

Many Nokia design patents used on Windows Phone now owned by HMD | On MSFT

Many Nokia design patents used on Windows Phone now owned by HMD

HMD Global, the company who now owns the Nokia brand and will release future Nokia devices, has just won the rights to around 500 design patents that had previously been owned by Microsoft Mobile. One of these patents is the Lumia Camera UI design which Windows Phone users will remember as the default camera app loaded with professional lighting and shutter speed options.

Microsoft Mobile still appears to own the design patents for PureView, PureMotion, and some others so they're not losing all of the products they had created during their time collaborating with Nokia on mobile devices. Still, quite a few appear to have gone along with Nokia to its new owner, HMD.

While definitely interesting news, this speaks more to what features and designs will be seen in future Nokia mobile devices rather than something that's being taken away from Microsoft. Microsoft has been using most of their own apps and technology on mobile in recent years (using their own Camera app instead of Lumia Camera for example) and this is something we've been seeing more and more of since the transition to the Universal Windows Platform app format began over a year ago which allows for the same app code to be used across Windows 10 PCs, Windows 10 Mobile devices, Xbox One consoles, and even HoloLens units. Still, it will be curious to see something that used to define Windows Phones on other Nokia devices running a different OS.

What do you think about this news? Let us know in the comments below.

Further reading: Apps, Camera App, Microsoft, Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile

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Source: Many Nokia design patents used on Windows Phone now owned by HMD