Context:
- Earlier this year, Patrik Hammarén was appointed President of Nokia Technologies on a non-transitional basis (January 22, 2025 ip fray article). While he was Acting President, he accepted to be interviewed by us (November 13, 2024 ip fray article) and talked about his approach to team building, among other topics.
- A few months ago, ip fray mentioned on LinkedIn that Arvin Patel was leaving Nokia “on an extremely positive note” after several years as Chief Licensing Officer, New Segment. We described him as “[o]ne of the most well-respected licensing executives in the industry” while making it clear that Nokia Technologies was set to grow. We interviewed Mr. Patel two months ago as he joined Erich Spangenberg’s SIM IP as Managing Director (September 16, 2025 ip fray article).
- We quoted his temporary successor, Vipul Mehrotra, in connection with the Paramount litigation (August 22, 2025 ip fray article) and the agreement (without prior litigation) with pay-TV provider Starz (October 27, 2025 ip fray article).
What’s new: Tejas Shah, presently Senior Licensing Director at InterDigital, has just announced on LinkedIn that at the end of this month he will become Nokia’s new Chief Licensing Officer, New Segments. Mr. Shah will join the Nokia Technologies Leadership Team. Mr. HammarĂ©n said on LinkedIn he was “delighted” to confirm this, and thanked Mr. Mehrotra (who will stay at Nokia and continue to report directly to Mr. HammarĂ©n) for his work.
At the moment, Mr. Shah is responsible for leading license negotiations in InterDigital’s smartphone and video services licensing programs. Prior to joining InterDigital, he worked as an IP valuation expert at Pellegrino & Associates, where he conducted over 200 valuation engagements, both in and out of litigation. Mr. Shah began his journey in IP as an attorney in private practice, where his practice focused on patent prosecution, and IP litigation.  He holds a bachelor’s in chemistry, a J.D., and an MBA in Finance from Indiana University.
It is interesting to see below Mr. Shah’s LinkedIn post that current and former key players at InterDigital have only positive things to say about him. InterDigital’s Chief Licensing Offer Julia Mattis (on whose appointment we reported on LinkedIn), wrote:
While you will be greatly missed here, Tejas, I am just so thrilled for you and can’t wait to hear about all the great things you are about to do at Nokia! They are lucky to have you! It’s been an absolute pleasure working with you over the last few years!
Her predecessor, Eeva Hakoranta, who also spent 13 years at Nokia, wrote:
Big news! Congrats to both of you – Tejas & Patrik! You have both been a joy to work with and I am truly excited to see you achieving together in team Nokia – it really is a small world!
Best of luck for the new venture Tejas, I will be cheering for you!
InterDigital’s strong performance at the moment, and generally in recent years, makes it a strong reference when a licensing executive joins from there.
At Nokia, Mr. Shah’s responsibility will be to further grow the video licensing program, but he will “also be exploring how Nokia can expand its licensing business into other new and emerging technology domains — leveraging the company’s strong heritage of innovation and intellectual property leadership” according to his post and confirmed by Mr. HammarĂ©n’s post.
He leaves InterDigital on a positive note, thanking CEO Liren Chen and 16 other executives toward the end of his LinkedIn post.