Huawei v. Samsung: Maybe this is only the beginning?

View: 2546     Date: 2016-07-06 10:51

Just several days ago, news that Huawei filed lawsuits against Samsung simultaneously in California of the U.S.A and Shenzhen of China made headlines around the world. Yesterday, according to a local newspaper in Quanzhou—a southeastern city in Fujian Province of China, Huawei launched its third attack against Samsung by further suing the latter for patent infringement and claiming RMB80 million in damages with Quanzhou Intermediate People’s Court.

The alleged infringed patent (patent No. ZL201010104157.0) was granted to Huawei on 15 June 2011 in China with post-grant publication No. CN101763270B, titled “Method for displaying and processing assembly and user equipment”, covering the interaction technology on smartphone interface. Besides, Huawei also subsequently applied and successfully obtained patents in other countries such as U.S.A, Japan and Korea through PCT to globally protect that important technology. This time and by this patent, Huawei claimed Samsung's 16 types of products including its latest product Galaxy S7 (G9300) for patent infringement, seeking a damage of RMB80 million.

After these events, Huawei becomes the first one in China’s telecom industry taking proactive role in patent infringement lawsuits with international corporations, which could be a landmark in the history of China’s telecom industry development.

What on earth enables Huawei to lead such huge change? The key is IP. In fact, Ren Zhengfei, the founder and president of Huawei, highlighted more than once the innovation and IPR protection in his public speaking, which may be best interpreted by the following data we collected.

With a staff of about 80,000 working in R&D, Huawei invests about $9.2 billion each year in research and development, accounting for 15% of its global sales. According to the WIPO, Huawei led the top PCT applicants in 2015 for the second consecutive year with 3,898 published PCT applications, or an additional 456 applications over 2014, while the No.2 Qualcomm Incorporated only filed 2,442 PCT applications. In addition, by the end of 2015, Huawei has got 50,377 patents granted globally.

The above is the demonstration of Huawei’s endeavor and its years of accumulation in IP. In fact, Huawei is only a symbol of the evolution of China’s IP. We can notice more and more Chinese enterprises are becoming more IP savvy these years. In order to stimulate the nationwide innovation, Chinese governments take a myriad of measures and formulate one five year plan after another to guide and support the creation and use of intellectual property. We believe more and more international companies will enter China’s market as well as IP field. Such lawsuits may no longer be any fresh things in the future. To survive and sustain development in such fierce competitive environment, one should equip himself with IP arms as soon as possible.

As an industry-leading IP attorney agency, Leader Patent & Trademark Firm stands ready to assist you with your IP protection strategies. We have a very strong team of IP professionals who are quite experienced in drafting, prosecution, and invalidation as well as litigation. Just for your information, the involved infringed patent as mentioned above was drafted by one of our senior patent attorneys, Ms. Na Zhang, the Director of Patent Agency Dept., who has passionately and enthusiastically engaged in this IP field for more than eight years. For more details of our people, please visit team-hehuoren.html.

(International Affairs dept. of Leader IP)