Huawei and Verizon agree to settle patent litigation

Huawei and Verizon, the largest communications operator in the United States have agreed to settle two lawsuits alleging patent infringement. Huawei’s patent infringement case against Verizon will be heard in Marshall, Texas on Wednesday. Huawei and Verizon filed a joint motion in two US courts to dismiss the two cases and Verizon’s counterclaim.

In February last year, Huawei announced that it had filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Verizon in the Eastern and Western District Courts of Texas, requesting that the court find that Verizon has infringed on 12 patents authorized by Huawei in the United States and pay compensation. People familiar with the matter said that Huawei’s claim amount will exceed 1 billion U.S. dollars.

Huawei claimed that they had negotiated with Verizon for a long time and provided Verizon with a detailed list of patents and factual evidence that Verizon used Huawei’s patents.

It is said that in the past 20 years, Huawei has conducted extensive cross-licensing negotiations with major patent holders in the telecommunications industry, and has signed more than 100 patent license agreements with major ICT manufacturers in the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea.

Since 2015, Huawei’s intellectual property revenue has exceeded 1.4 billion U.S. dollars, and historically, it has paid more than 6 billion U.S. dollars in patent royalties for the legal use of patents of other companies, 80% of which is paid to U.S. companies.

(Via)