MediaTek and Huawei sue each other over patent infringement

It was recently reported that Huawei filed a patent infringement lawsuit against MediaTek in a Chinese court. In response, MediaTek and its subsidiaries HFI Innovation and MTK Wireless filed a lawsuit against Huawei in a British court, accusing it of patent infringement, TrendForce writes, citing various sources.

Image source: MediaTek

MediaTek said the case against Huawei is currently before the courts and declined to comment further. Huawei did not respond to requests for comment from journalists.

According to YiCai, patent disputes between MediaTek and Huawei have been going on for several years, but both parties have not yet been able to reach a settlement agreement due to disagreements on the financial side of the issue.

Nikkei reported on July 18 that Huawei filed a patent infringement lawsuit against MediaTek in a local Chinese court. MediaTek issued a statement on July 19 saying that the lawsuit would not have a significant impact on the company’s operations, that it was ready to litigate and would not comment further on the matter.

Industry sources speculate that Huawei’s patent infringement lawsuit against MediaTek may involve 5G (and possibly 4G, 3G, etc.) cellular technologies. They believe that the reason for the lawsuit was that Huawei demanded too high a fee from MediaTek for licensing patents. In the end, both companies were unable to reach an agreement and went to court.

Huawei and MediaTek hold a huge number of related patents. As of the end of 2022, Huawei owned more than 120 thousand patents worldwide. According to other YiCai data, the company owns 20% of global patents for 5G and Wi-Fi 6 technologies, 10% of patents for 4G technologies and 15% of patents for NB-IoT and LTE-M technologies. In turn, MediaTek owned over 13 thousand patents at the end of 2022, and received 1,200 new ones in that year alone. These figures include only issued patents, excluding pending applications. It is also reported that MediaTek ranks first among Taiwanese companies in the number of global patents for 5G, Wi-Fi and HEVC/VVC technologies.

According to the Commercial Times, China’s technological capabilities have grown significantly in recent years. Local companies are actively filing patent applications domestically and internationally. With the support of the Chinese government, they also began to frequently participate in patent disputes. Last year, Chinese courts received 5,062 lawsuits over intellectual property and monopoly issues.