Huawei unveils royalty rates to ‘share innovations’
The Chinese tech firm said it is willing to share its patents to ‘support the common, sustainable development of industries’ | Huawei pledged its commitment to fair licensing principles in order to ‘incentivise the creation and adoption of innovations’.
In a surprising move, one of the world’s largest patent holders, Huawei, announced royalty rates for its handsets, Wi-Fi, and Internet of Things (IoT) patent licence programmes.
The company’s chief legal officer Song Liuping made the announcement yesterday, July 13, at Huawei’s annual event on innovation and IP protection in Shenzhen, ‘ Bridging Horizons of Innovations: Sharing IP, Driving Innovation’.
At the event, Huawei expressed its commitment to licensing its standard essential patents (SEPs) on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) principles.
It revealed that its rate caps for 4G and 5G handsets are US $1.5 per unit and US $2.5 per unit, respectively.
Its royalty rate for Wi-Fi 6 consumer devices, meanwhile, is US $0.5 per unit.
The rate for IoT-centric devices is 1% of the net selling price, capped at US $0.75, while the rate for IoT-enhanced devices ranges from US $0.3 to US $1 per unit.
Sustainability aims
Speaking at the firm’s event, where the announcements were made, Huawei’s chief legal officer Song Liuping said that the company is “willing to share cutting-edge innovations in the form of patents with the world”.
“These will support the common, sustainable development of industries globally,” he added.
Alan Fan, vice president and head of the IP rights department at Huawei, emphasised that a positive cycle where innovators are protected, rewarded, and encouraged is crucial to sustainable innovation.
“Huawei takes a balanced approach to patent licensing,” he said. “We believe reasonable royalty rates will incentivise both the creation and adoption of innovations.”
The announcement comes as debate continues to rage over how best to manage SEPs based on FRAND principles.
In April, the European Commission’s much-anticipated proposed regulations on SEPs drew mixed reactions from the international patent community, with strong criticism emanating from both SEP holders and implementers.
In an interview with WIPR, Qualcomm’s senior VP and general manager John Han fervently decried the proposals, arguing that the European Commission simply doesn’t understand the telecoms market.
Supporter of open source
According to Huawei, over the past 20 years it has been a major contributor to mainstream ICT standards, such as cellular, Wi-Fi and multimedia codecs.
Huawei has entered into almost 200 bilateral patent licences, Fan confirmed yesterday, and more than 350 companies have obtained licences to Huawei’s patents through patent pools.
Under these licences, Huawei’s total past royalty payment is about three times its total royalty collection, and its 2022 licensing revenue was $560 million.
Huawei continues to be a dominant player in this sector, with licensing agreements with tech industry players such as Samsung and Oppo, and car makers including Mercedes-Benz, Audi, BMW, Porsche, Subaru, Renault, Lamborghini, and Bentley.
It is also an active advocate and supporter of major global open source industry organisations, added Fan.
At the event, various technologies were discussed, including research on 5.5G; audio and video technologies; a ten-size adjustable aperture in mobile phones; a general obstacle detection network that helps cars identify abnormal objects; and algorithms that can enable intelligent production scheduling and optimisation.
Huawei’s official licensing website was also launched at the event, which details the company’s bilateral licensing programmes.
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