Huawei and Ericsson renew global 5G patent licensing deal

Friday’s agreement between Chinese telecommunication company Huawei and Swedish electronics manufacturer Ericsson is long-term and covers access to each company’s 3GPP, ITU, IEEE, and IETF standards for 3G, 4G, and 5G cellular technologies. JUVE Patent is not aware of any pending or ongoing litigation between the two parties. The parties have not confirmed the exact terms of the agreement.

Last time the two companies extended a cross-licensing agreement was in 2016. Over the past few years, both companies have actively contributed to developing key mobile standards.

Earlier this year, the European Patent Office published the EPO Patent Index 2022: with 4,505 patents filed, Huawei was the top contributor, while Ericsson came in fifth with 1,827. Currently, according to the Financial Times, Huawei owns 20% of global patents which makes it the world’s largest 5G patent owner. However, Ericsson apparently also boasts 60,000 granted patents.

Huawei and Ericsson seek collaboration

In a press release, Alan Fan, head of Huawei’s IP department, says, “We are delighted to reach a long-term global cross-licensing agreement with Ericsson. As major contributors of standard essential patents (SEPs) for mobile communication, the companies recognise the value of each other’s intellectual property, and this agreement creates a stronger patent environment.”

Fan continues, “This agreement is the result of intensive discussions that ensured the interests of both patent holders and implementers are served fairly.”

Christina Petersson joined Ericsson as its chief IP officer in 2019. She says, “This agreement demonstrates the commitment of both parties that intellectual property should be respected and rewarded, and that leading technological innovations should be shared across the industry. A balanced approach to licensing ensures that the interests of both patent holders and implementers are served fairly.”

In Avanci together

Both Huawei and Ericsson are part of the Avanci patent pool, although the Chinese company is a recent addition following Avanci’s launch of a 5G vehicular programme earlier this month, which it says will “simplify the licensing of the cellular technologies used in next generation connected vehicles”. Other licencees include Samsung, Philips, Panasonic and ZTE.

However, while Huawei and Ericsson have not engaged in active patent litigation, towards the end of last year Huawei demonstrated an intention to be more litigious over its patent portfolio. This included filing lawsuits against car manufacturer Stellantis over mobile phone patents, as well as launching a series of lawsuits over Wi-Fi 6 patents against Amazon, Netgear and AVM.

Around the same time, in the midst of a US FRAND trial, Ericsson and Apple signed a global patent licence agreement. This ended one of the largest disputes over implementation patents and SEPs in recent years, which spanned the US, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, Colombia and Brazil.

Future disputes

Recently, Huawei has also filed an infringement action against Netgear at the Munich local division over EP 3 611 989, which covers a method and apparatus for transmitting wireless local area network information. The patent is standard essential.

At this year’s JUVE Awards, as announced by JUVE Patent last week, Huawei is nominated for ‘IP in-house team of the year’. The other nominees are Birkenstock, Deutsche Telekom, Hartmann and Siemens.