HMD Global has now acquired rights to the PureView trademark from Microsoft. The PureView brand, which was originally owned by Nokia and moved to Microsoft as a part of Nokia’s Devices and Services division deal back in 2014, made its market debut half a decade ago. The fresh development makes the Nokia brand licensee capable of using the PureView brand on its future models. The PureView brand entered the mobile phone market with the launch of Nokia 808 PureView in January 2013. While it was introduced on a Symbian OS-based handset, it expanded to the Windows Phone-powered Nokia Lumia 920, Lumia 1020, and Lumia 1520 handsets as well.
As per the trademark listing on the EUIPO site, the PureView trademark was originally filed in January 2012 and HMD Global acquired its rights from Microsoft on August 23. Folks at Nokiamob.net first spotted the listing.
While HMD Global now owns the camera-focused PureView brand, we may need to wait for some time to see any Android smartphones featuring the PureView brand. However, it is worth noting here that alongside the latest entry of the PureView brand to HMD’s portfolio, the Nokia brand licensee also back in July last year collaborated with Zeiss to start deploying high-end optics on Nokia smartphones. The original Nokia 8 last year arrived as the first Android-running Nokia smartphone with Zeiss optics-powered dual rear camera setup.
The last model that carried the PureView branding was the Lumia 950. However, the 808 PureView and the Lumia 1020 were the two handsets that made the PureView brand strong enough to make the competition tougher for flagships offered by companies such as Samsung, Sony, and HTC.
Considering the historical record of HMD Global that plays off nostalgia for the legacy Nokia developments including the Nokia 3310 and Nokia 8110 4G, it is safe to expect some old PureView branded handsets in a new package. The company could bring an Android-running Nokia 808 PureView or the great grand successor to the Nokia 1020. Having said that, we need to wait at least for some time to see what HMD has to surprise the smartphone market.