Huawei has announced that they are suing Verizon for patent violations. The case, filed to court in Texas, concerns Verizon allegedly using 12 of Huawei’s patents without any permission.
The patents deal with network technology without exception. The technologies in the patents have names such as “Sending Method, Receiving and Processing Method and Apparatus for Adapting Payload Bandwidth for Data Transmission.” Huawei regularly highlights its R&D expenditures, which in 2018 was worth almost 15 percent of the company’s revenue.
Huawei announces that it sees no other option but to file an indictment. “Verizon’s products and services have benefited from patented technology developed by Huawei over many years of research and development,” says the Chinese company. “For years, we have successfully negotiated license agreements with many companies. Unfortunately, when no agreement can be reached, we have no choice but to file a lawsuit”.
Part of older conflict
The conflict between Huawei and Verizon dates back to last year. Huawei demanded payment for licenses on more than 200 patents. At that time, other media reported that the license fees for these patents could exceed 1 billion dollars. The US Senate has already tried to stop Huawei from selling and buying patents in the US. Of course, this certainly has to do with the fear of espionage that still prevails. Yesterday it became clear that U.S. officials stated they had proof for a backdoor.
So far Huawei does not demand any specific amount of money, according to sources. This is because the company would need more information about Verizon to work out an estimate. In the end, it could cost the US company up to hundreds of millions of dollars. Huawei is focusing on these 12 patents specifically, because the Chinese company has strong evidence that Verizon is using the technology in those patents, and courts prefer to handle smaller numbers at a time.
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