Huawei and Verizon resolve patent suits
Huawei Technologies has settled its patent dispute with US tech company Verizon Communications after it filed two lawsuits alleging that patents covering computer networking, the downloading of security, and video communications had been infringed.
The parties confirmed they had signed a confidential settlement on Monday, July 12, after District Judge Rodney Gilstrap granted the companies’ joint motion to dismiss the suits days into a trial held in Texas.
In February 2020, Huawei sued Verizon holding that it had taken specific steps to protect its IP in light of Verizon’s alleged infringement, including entering negotiations to explore Verizon’s need for a licence to Huawei’s patents.
During these discussions, Huawei stated that it had specifically identified patents from its portfolio and services offered by Verizon that infringed its IP.
‘Heavy R&D investment’
In the filing, the Chinese company pointed out that it had invested heavily in research and development (R&D), routinely spending over 10% of its annual revenue on innovation.
In 2018 alone, Huawei invested over $14 billion in R&D and about 45% of Huawei’s global workforce (over 80,000 employees in 2018) work in R&D, the filing stated.
In March 2020 Verizon filed counterclaims against Huawei, arguing that the Chinese company has a long record of “failing to play by the rules where lP is concerned”.
Verizon argued that it held more than 7,000 US patents for its inventions and that its patented ideas are the technologies that fuel Verizon’s networks, “not the outdated and valueless techniques referenced in Huawei’s complaint”.
“Huawei’s suit against Verizon is another example of an attempt by Huawei to take credit for American innovation. Huawei ignores Verizon’s own substantial investment in research and development. Verizon will vigorously defend against Huawei’s baseless claims of patent infringement. As explained herein, Huawei is using Verizon’s technology—not the other way around,” argued the US company.
In the wake of this week’s settlement, Verizon confirmed in a statement to Reuters that it was “happy with the settlement reached with Huawei involving patent lawsuits”.
Huawei said that it was “pleased that Verizon and Huawei reached an agreement that ends the companies’ patent litigation” but that “the terms of the agreement are confidential”.
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