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China's Huawei Sues Samsung Claiming Mobile Patent Infringement (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the role-reversal dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Huawei said on Wednesday it has filed lawsuits against Samsung claiming infringement of smartphone patents, in the first such case by the Chinese firm against the world's biggest mobile maker. Huawei has filed lawsuits in the United States and China seeking compensation for what it said was unlicensed use of fourth-generation (4G) cellular communications technology, operating systems and user interface software in Samsung phones. The lawsuit marks a reversal of roles in China where firms have often been on the receiving end of patent infringement disputes. In smartphones, makers have grown rapidly in recent years but different intellectual property laws outside of China have slowed overseas expansion. "We hope Samsung will ... stop infringing our patents and get the necessary license from Huawei, and work together with Huawei to jointly drive the industry forward," Ding Jianxing, president of Huawei's Intellectual Property Rights Department, said.

4 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. That's rich by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is coming from a company and a country that haven't respected intellectual property rights of others. Chinese factories are notorious for knocking off goods they're contracted to produce. Chinese companies have a history of not respecting intellectual property. Huawei holds over 50,000 patents and this particular one seems to relate to the LTE standard, though the article is vague. I don't think patents should be enforceable in industry standards. There's also a good chance that many of those 50,000+ patents are trivial.

  2. Oh, the irony is killing me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Huawei (or any other Chinese manufacturer) suing anyone for patent infringement is just priceless...

  3. Standard Samsung MO by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Samsung is (or should be) well known for purposely infringing patents with the knowledge that they have the money to fight in court until the situation is no longer relevant. They don't just do it against American companies and in the mobile business, they've been doing it for years in Korea as well.

    Samsung is hugely corrupt and rarely follows the rules. They get sued and counter-sue, tie up cases in courts for years, and then when the other company is tired of fighting, they either walk away scot free, or pay a pittance in relation to the profit they made by infringing. Huawei has no way to win this fight, but they're obligated to try for a while, at least.

    I would try to stay away from Samsung products on principle, but I can't even buy Apple products without putting money into Samsung's pocket.

    Vanity Fair ran a good article a few years ago that goes over it a bit.
    http://www.vanityfair.com/news...

  4. The problem is how they got caught. by mmell · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I'll bet somebody was trying to back-engineer Samsung's hardware when they realized "hey, I don't even need to reverse engineer this part 'cuz I wrote that last year.

    "Wait a minute . . . "