Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

China's ZTE and Huawei Join the German Patent Fray

Posted by timothy on from the howdy-euch dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Germany has pretty much become the new Eastern District of Texas, the world's most popular patent battleground. After Apple, Samsung and Motorola, the Chinese are now going to Germany as well to sort out their domestic patent squabbles. Huawei and ZTE, arguably the People's Republic's leading wireless tech companies, started suing each other in April last year. On Friday the Mannheim Regional Court held a Huawei vs. ZTE hearing, reports a local patent watcher. Huawei says ZTE infringes a 4G/LTE handover patent and wants its rival's base stations and USB modem sticks banned in Germany. More clashes between the two are coming up in the same court and in other places in Europe, including France."

5 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Pot calling the kettle black? by Aereus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Anyone else find it ironic that Huawei is going after another firm for infringement after the number of articles about Huawei stealing and/or reverse-engineering competitors equipment in order to compete with them?

    1. Re:Pot calling the kettle black? by Aereus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, but do you notice how the Chinese companies didn't start producing their own bladeless fans until AFTER Dyson had popularized it and sold a physical product? Yes, it's not a cut and dry case with companies as concerns lookalike products. But clearly Chinese firms are amongst the most unapologetic and blatant copycats on the world market. They wait for other companies to do the R&D, then leech off the public demand for said products while hiding behind the shield of poor/non-existent IP laws in China.

      There's a big reason they're suing them in Germany and not China: They know it would be useless to attempt it in Chinese courts. It's the same reason the RIAA/MPAA don't bother prosecuting all the blatant infringement that goes on in China.

    2. Re:Pot calling the kettle black? by martin-boundary · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Patents shouldn't protect individuals either. We need to get away from this idea of the sole genius who discovers something, that if he hadn't been born it would never have been discovered by anyone.

      Newton said it best "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." He also _experienced_ this first hand when Leibniz discovered the calculus independently.

  2. Who screwed up? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ZTE is state owned. Huawei is officially private, but the Chinese government is still certainly a major influence on the company, enough that the US government is concerned about espionage. This is akin to the time Fox News threatened sue another Fox division over a parody of their copyrighted ticker style. Except in the Fox case, someone higher up the chain quickly took notice and told the offending executive to knock it off and play nice with their ally before it went to court.

  3. Those Chinese... by TheDarAve · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They're even copying our frivolous patent lawsuits now! They learn quick...