In the trade war between the U.S. and China, Huawei is caught in the middle and is going through a rough patch. While the situation doesn’t show any sign of improvements for Huawei, it has not yet retaliated. However, that could soon get changed.
As per the reports, if nothing improves for Huawei, the Chinese company might resort to using one of the most deadly weapons in its arsenal — the vast portfolio of patents on essential technology.
Reports from Anaqua’s AcclaimIP says that Huawei owns 56,492 active patents on telecommunications, networking, and other inventions. In the year 2018, the company apparently received 1,680 US patents and its total collection of active patents and published applications stand at 102,911.
Huawei is currently in protracted licensing talks with phone-services provider Verizon Communications and is in a dispute with chip maker Qualcomm over the value of patents. The company has also lodged claims against Harris Corp. after the defense contractor sued it last year alleging infringement of patents for networking and cloud security.
Huawei is reportedly asking for over $1 billion in patent licensing fees for using around 320 of its networking equipment patents, even though Verizon isn’t directly using Huawei’s equipment. Verizon is the biggest smartphone carrier in the U.S. and the first telecom company in the country to roll out 5G networks.
In some circles, Huawei’s outsize role as a supplier to the next-generation technology and 5G networks makes the company a potential threat either as an espionage agent or network disruption tool. Not only Huawei has become a flashpoint in the middle of the 5G race, but it is also targeted by the Trump administration in the on-going trade dispute.
Given the number of patents from the Chinese giant, whether or not a country decides to use Huawei’s infrastructure, there are pretty high chances that they will still be using one of the technologies that Huawei has a patent on.
The U.S. isn’t just banning Huawei in its country but is also pressuring its European allies to not use Huawei’s 5G equipment. Because of this, experts believe that the Chinese manufacturer can retaliate by putting its patents to good use.
(Source)
