Samsung and Oppo are apparently aiming on improving their 5G enabled modems. A new report has revealed that both companies are licensing key 5G technology from Huawei. So here are all the details regarding this matter.

For those unaware, Huawei is a major player in the telecommunications market apart from also being a known smartphone maker. The company was one of the pioneers of 5G technology, with its telecom equipment being used by a number of operators across the globe. However, following scrutiny sparked by the US, the Chinese tech giant was banned from telecom networks in certain regions. Furthermore, the US sanctions had even impacted its telecom operations as well. But, it appears that the company is still licensing its 5G tech expertise to other brands. A new report stated that Huawei announced a cross licensing deal with Oppo, which includes standard essential patents (SEP) for 5G networking.

According to Adler Fend, Oppo’s Chief Intellectual Property Officer We are very pleased to enter into patent cross-licensing agreement with Huawei. It clearly demonstrates that the two companies recognize and greatly respect the value of each other’s intellectual property. It is a win-win deal for both sides. We will, as always, advocate for the establishment of a sustainable, healthy intellectual property ecosystem, where intellectual property licenses can be resolved through amicable negotiations and every company’s patent value are highly respected.”

The company is also licensing key 5G technologies to Samsung as well. While there are no details regarding the purpose of this licensing, the South Korean tech giant would likely use Huawei’s 5G tech to improve its own 5G modems. Apart from this, the brand could also use 5G networking gear to be used in Samsung Network’s own telecom equipment as well.

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(Source)

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Huawei Technologies is apparently planning to take a new step to overcome the challenges it faces with the US Sanctions. The company is planning on working with other smartphone brands to bypass US sanctions, in order to get US technologies.

According to a Bloomberg report, the Chinese tech giant is aiming on licensing its smartphone designs to other brands, which would enable it to gain access to critical US components. The news arrives from sources close to the matter, who claim that the move would enable the company to help its declining smartphone business. For those unaware, Huawei was hit with various US sanctions that restricted its access to technologies that had its origins in the US.

In other words, this basically cut off its supply to key components for its smartphones, while another sanction cut off its chip supply from TSMC. This had effectively crippled its handset operations, but now, the company is considering licensing its designs to a unit of state owned China Postal Telecommunications Appliances Co. or PTAC. This brand will then buy parts that Huawei is banned from acquiring. The unit in question is Xnova, which is also the firm that is selling Huawei’s Nova series of smartphones on its official website.

Furthermore, the partnership is also expected to have the unit offer its self branded handsets that are based on the tech giant’s designs. Other partners include Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer TD Tech Ltd, which will also sell some models that feature Huawei’s designs under its own branding as well. Keep in mind that this is still just an unconfirmed report at the moment, so take it with a pinch of salt. Just last year, the brand even had to sell off its budget smartphone making unit, Honor, and it is now attempting to “salvage” its existing smartphone business.

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A couple of months ago, in July this year, Nokia had filed a few patent-related lawsuits against OPPO. Now, as a retaliation, the Chinese company has filed several patents infringement lawsuits against Nokia in China and Europe.

The patents involved in the lawsuit are all 5G standard essential patents. With the commercialization of 5G technology, the essential patent licensing rates between patent owners and smartphone makers have been rising.

Nokia, the Finnish company that just settled the patent dispute with Daimler, is pushing ahead to enter the 5G field. It intends to take advantage of the patent war with OPPO to lay the groundwork for 5G standard-essential patent fees.

Over the last ten years, Nokia has sued several different companies but this is likely the first time in the last decade to file a counter sued for patent infringement. This is due to a lack of high-quality assets or the lack of courage to confront Nokia head-on.

In July this year, Nokia filed dozens of patent infringement lawsuits against OPPO in about nine countries, including India, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. While the reason behind this move hasn’t been announced, it’s likely that the companies failed to reach an agreement for the 5G patent license.

Ever since Nokia stopped making mobile phones (HMD Global has licensed Nokia brand for smartphones), the patent license fees play an important role for the Finland-based company. It is trying to find a foothold in the telecom equipment market and with Huawei facing several issues, there’s a greater chance for Nokia to get a majority of contracts.

Nokia has adopted the strategy of aggressive litigation to collect the licensing fees. Before OPPO, the company had filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Lenovo in the US, Brazil, India, Germany, and others. It lasted for more than a year and was settled by the companies earlier this year in April.

It will be interesting to see how this legal dispute ends. While there’s a high possibility of both the companies reached an agreement, the battle between the patent holder and license holder for using it could form new rules for the companies.

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Earlier this week, Huawei Technologies revealed its royalty rate for licensing its 5G mobile technology for the first time since the company and other China based firms were designated as national security threats.

According to a SCMP report, Jason Ding, the head of intellectual property at Huawei, made the announcement and revealed its licensing push during a speech on Tuesday at an innovation forum event in Shenzhen, China. During the event, the Chinese tech giant introduced its latest intellectual property white paper as well. As per Ding, “We believe licensing should balance return on investment and cost pressures of implementation in the industry. For every phone that complies with 5G standards, we will not seek a royalty rate higher than US$2.5 per unit.”

Through this, the smartphone maker hopes that the rates “will give implementers of 5G technology a clear number they can rely on for cost estimation and investment decisions. Our goal is to promote broader adoption of 5G across all industries.” For those unaware, Huawei was placed in the trade blacklist by the Trump administration back in 2019, despite being the largest technical contributor to global 5G standards.

As per the report, the company’s revenue from patent licensing alone between 2019 and 2021 is estimated to be somewhere around 1.2 billion US Dollars to 1.3 billion US Dollars. Notably, the effort for licensing its 5G technology and generating revenue also highlights the company’s current situation as it struggles due to the various sanctions against it. The company has had restrictions ranging from access to advances chips, to even technology made in the US imposed on it.

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Ericsson has filed a lawsuit against Samsung in the United States, accusing the South Korean giant of not adhering to its contractual commitments for various licensing patent agreements. It claims that Samsung is failing to adhere to fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms and conditions.

The company is seeking to attain a declaration that it has complied with its FRAND commitment and that Samsung has not. Ericsson claims that Samsung’s FRAND commitment is a contract between Samsung and European Telecommunications Standards Institute and it has the right to enforce this commitment as a third-party beneficiary.

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For those who are unaware, several most common technological standards are protected by patents held by companies, including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Such technologies being essential, the patent holders are obliged to grant licenses on FRAND terms.

In this instance, the FRAND commitment is related to various global cross-licenses that cover patents from both the companies related to 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G cellular standards. These standards are used in smartphones, other mobile devices, and cellular infrastructure.

With several of the licensing deals set to expire next year and negotiations still ongoing, Ericsson said the payment of IP royalties may be delayed. In such case, Ericsson predicted its operating income could decline by $118-177 million per quarter from 2021 onwards.

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In a major relief to the Chinese tech giant Huawei, the United States is now allowing more and more chipset makers to supply components to the China-based company as long as they are not used for the 5G business.

A new report coming from Financial Times indicates that this could offer a potential lifeline to Huawei as the sanctions imposed against the companies were more and less threatening the survival of the giant.

The smartphone business of Huawei, which is the most hit area for the company, now has a chance to make recovery. The report indicates that the application for a license to supply components to Huawei gets approved if the company demonstrates that the technology does not support 5G.

One of the executives of an Asian semiconductor company has said to FT that chips for mobile devices are not a problem and added that the company is optimistic to get a license to continue doing business with Huawei.

In an apparent US-China trade war, the United States put Huawei on Entity List in May last year, effectively banning the company from doing business with US-based companies or companies dealing with American technology, without a special license from the U.S.

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A couple of months, the restrictions were tightened as the United States banned the supply of chipset and technology to Huawei. While it stopped the supply of chips to Huawei, the ban has also been proven damaging for the overall semiconductor industry as suppliers anticipate loss of billions of dollars.

However, in recent times, more and more companies are getting a license to deal with the Chinese giant. Samsung Display recently got a green signal to provide OLED panels to Huawei and prior to that, Intel had confirmed that it received approval to supply chips.

It is being said that Japan-based Sony and China-owned OmniVision, which has its headquarters in California, have also received approval to supply CMOS image sensors that are used in smartphone cameras.

As per the report, more than 300 companies, including the likes of Samsung Electronics, Qualcomm, MediaTek, among others have applied for a license to do business with Huawei and they are expected to get approval in the coming weeks or months.

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Micron Technology has yet to regain a new license to continue selling to memory chips to Huawei Technologies. This may lead to the company’s sales to fall for the next two quarters, as per an executive.

According to a Reuters report, Micron had previously obtained the license to supply the Chinese tech giant with memory chips for its smartphones and servers from its factories outside of the United States. For those unaware, companies are required to gain a special license from the US government, after the smartphone maker was put in the “Entity List” by the US Commerce Department, and faced an export ban.

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Recently, the US has further reinforced the restrictions on the company that bars it from using any US made tools or software, which came into effect as of 14th September 2020. In other words, this has caused a complete halt in shipments from Micron to Huawei. The latter accounted for about 600 million US Dollars out of the former’s 6.06 billion US Dollars in sales for the fiscal fourth quarter that ended on 3rd September 2020, meaning about 10 percent of its total sales.

According to Sumit Sadana, Micron Chief business officer, “The manufacturing equipment in those fabs are obviously from U.S.-based companies,” which is why the shipments have stopped altogether. The senior official also added that “As soon as we get the license, we would work with Huawei to determine how we can resurrect the business.” So, if a license isn’t acquired, Micron stands to lose out on a notable part of its business due to recent sanctions.

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Huawei is currently struggling to keep its smartphone business afloat as the Chinese giant has been heavily restricted by the sanctions from the United States from procuring or manufacturing necessary components.

But it seems that there is some hope for the company. Forrest Norrod, Senior Vice President at AMD has confirmed that the company has been granted a license to sell its products to some of the companies in the US Entity List.

The licenses secured by the company ensures that there won’t be a significant impact on the business at this time because of the China-focused restrictions from the US. He also added that the company is complying with all the rules and regulations.

However, it’s noteworthy that Forrest Norrod hasn’t revealed the names of the companies for which AMD has been granted licenses to carry on doing business. So, we are not sure if the Chinese giant Huawei is in it.

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Even if there’s no license for Huawei right now, his statement shed light on the fact that the United States is giving out licenses to companies for doing business with those firms that are in the Entity List. So, sooner or later, licenses can be granted to companies for doing business with Huawei.

Many companies have started lobbying with the United States government to reconsider some of the restrictions placed on Huawei, arguing that it impacts American businesses, both in terms of innovation and finance.

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