They bought only Nokia's mobile phone division and license for the Nokia brand for a few years. Nokia Research, Nokia Networks, the brand and the patents are still owned by Nokia.

After MS sold what remains of the Nokia phone manufacturing (including feature phone capacity that sells 70 million phones a year) to Foxconn, Foxconn and Nokia made HMD Global happen. Nokia provides brand for 10 years, patents and research, Foxconn finances the operation and builds the phones.