Editing by David Du

Huawei and Verizon settles patent lawsuits

Chinese tech giant Huawei and leading U.S. telecom carrier Verizon settled their U.S. patent lawsuits last week after both parties moved to withdraw their cases, Reuters reported. Although not specifying the detail of the deal, Huawei said in a statement that it welcomed this outcome, saying the agreement helped resolve their disputes that could lead to a protracted legal battle.

The patents involved in the lawsuits are related to optical transport networks and wireless communications in computer networking, download security, and video communications. 

Huawei reportedly filed two patent lawsuits in two U.S. District courts last February, alleging Verizon infringed on a number of its patents and seeking damages and royalty payments. In response, Verizon fought back with counterclaims, asserting its patent rights against Huawei. Although the amount Huawei sought was unknown, the Chinese company asked Verizon to pay about $1 billion for the use of its 230 patents back in 2019, according to Reuters.  

Huawei said it has a global patent portfolio of 100,000 valid patents, including 10,000 U.S. patents. 

Sisvel and Xiaomi reconciled over patent lawsuits worldwide

Chinese mobile phone maker Xiaomi recently signed a patent licensing deal with Italian patent management firm Sisvel to end all their patent brawls in various jurisdictions, the Italian company said. 

The two-year lawsuits between the two companies involving telecom standard-essential patents (SEPs) from Sisvel and Japanese company Mitsubishi Electric (Mitsubishi) have ended with the patent licensing deal. Xiaomi agreed to pay an undisclosed amount of licensing fees for more than 120 patent families or 1,800 patents owned by Sisvel or Mitsubishi, according to patent case monitor JUVE Patent.  

Sisvel sued Xiaomi in 2019 for patent infringement in courts spanning Germany, Italy, the UK, and the Netherlands. The Italian company said it had been asking Xiaomi for years to sign a licensing agreement for using its Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and Long Term Evolution (LTE) patent portfolio.  

Xiaomi prevailed in some of the lawsuits, with several of Sisvel’s SEPs invalidated. It was thus believed that the companies were on an equal footing in negotiating a reciprocal deal.