We’re so used to seeing an Apple vs Samsung patent lawsuit or some OEM filing an infringement suit against a Chinese brand that this latest news might seem strange. Huawei, a leading Chinese tech company, has filed a lawsuit against Korean tech giant Samsung saying that the latter has infringed on several of their smartphone patents. The cases have been filed in both US and Chinese courts and they are looking to force the company to financially compensate them and get the necessary licenses from them moving forward.

Huawei is suing Samsung for what they claim is the unlicensed use of several patented technology like fourth-generation (4G) cellular communications technology, operating systems and user interface software. The Chinese brand is currently the #1 smartphone brand in the country in terms of sales and they also claim that they currently have 50,377 global patents as of December 31, 2015. They have spent $9.2 billion, which is 15% of their annual revenue, into the research and development of various products and wireless standards.

For its part, Samsung has stated that they will “take appropriate action to defend Samsung’s business interests” but as to what those actions are, they did not specify. They stated just last week that they hold more than 110,145 patents as of the end of 2015 and that they in turn spent $12.45 in R&D and also securing all these patents as well. They used to be the number one smartphone in China, but now they are down to 6, behind Huawei, OPPO, Vivo, Apple and Xiaomi.

There is no news yet as to the merits of the case for either sides, but it is indeed a reversal of roles of sorts for Huawei, as a lot of Chinese brands have also faced down intellectual property lawsuits from various plaintiffs. But now that companies like Huawei are investing in R&D and patent filing, then they will probably be more cases like this when they’re on the other side of the argument.

VIA: Reuters

1 COMMENT

Leave a Reply to Hel Thanatos Cancel reply

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.