Huawei filed four patent lawsuits against ZTE in Germany, France and Hungary, accusing ZTE of infringing a series of patented technologies, involving data cards and high-speed 4G LTE network technology.
Huawei issued a number of pictures, saying that ZTE data card copied Huawei's trademark and printed Huawei's logo, and did not pay Huawei the corresponding license fee; In addition, Huawei has applied for a patent for the design of data card rotating head, and the data card produced by ZTE imitates the patent design of Huawei rotating head.
"In order to protect our innovation and intellectual property rights legally registered in Europe, Huawei has to take this legal action. Our goal is to terminate ZTE's illegal use of Huawei's intellectual property rights and resolve disputes through consultation. " Song Liuping, chief legal officer of Huawei, said.
Huawei is still calculating the compensation that ZTE should pay for the infringement, and Song Liuping said that the compensation could reach millions of dollars.
"When you have few patents, you must pay patent license fees to other enterprises. The so-called patent swap also depends on whether your patent is so valuable. For example, I have a house, and you can exchange it with a house with similar value. The gap between the two cannot be too big. " Some equipment manufacturers pointed out to this newspaper that in 20 10, Huawei paid a patent licensing fee of $22 10/00000, while ZTE has always refused to pay patent fees to Ericsson, Huawei and other manufacturers.
20 11April1day, Ericsson just filed a lawsuit against ZTE in Britain, Italy and Germany. In addition to patent claims, Ericsson also asked these three countries to ban the sale of ZTE mobile phones and some network equipment in Germany.
Core business hand-to-hand combat
Patent barriers have become an important weapon in international competition. Even brothers in the same city are unavoidable in hand-to-hand combat.
Huawei is the second largest telecom equipment manufacturer in the world after Ericsson. Data cards and LTE are both important growth drivers of Huawei ZTE and the focus of competition.
At present, Huawei and ZTE occupy the top two global data network card manufacturers, accounting for more than 80% of the global market: ZTE sold 30 million data cards in 20 10, while Huawei sold more than 35 million data cards in 2009.
Huawei has previously won LTE orders including Dutch operators KPNNV, Telefó nica and Deutsche Telekom; ZTE independently built the world's first LTEFDD/TDD dual-mode commercial network in Sweden and Denmark.
Huawei sued in these three European countries mainly because these places are the main markets for litigation-related products.
"I will do whatever you do, and I will enter which country you enter." Wang Yuquan, chief consultant of FrostSullivan, pointed out that Huawei and ZTE are the most similar communication equipment vendors, so when the competition develops to a certain stage, it is bound to "fight".
The industry believes that another purpose of Huawei's lawsuit against ZTE is to establish its image as a multinational company. Duncan Clark, president of BDA China, a consulting firm, said that suing another China company outside China is good for Huawei's image, because it can dispel people's consistent impression that Huawei has ties with the China government or other China companies.
Just one day after Huawei sued ZTE, ZTE also sued Huawei for infringing several important LTE patents.
"We are well aware that the market is full of all kinds of squeezing competition. We respect our peers and any opponents, but we will not be afraid of any provocation from behind and will only fight back. " ZTE said that the company has applied to the court to order Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. to stop the infringement, compensate the losses and bear other legal responsibilities caused by the infringement.
But how long this lawsuit can last is still unknown. The newspaper was informed that when Huawei had a tendency to sue, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology met with Huawei director Chen Lifang; After Huawei formally sued ZTE, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology met with Huawei again, hoping to coordinate and solve this matter.
The EU's "three evils" investigation is the fuse.
We started from Shenzhen together, entered the overseas market together, and broke into the top five of the world communication market together. As two giants in China's communication equipment industry, Huawei and ZTE are aiming at each other this time.
The fuse of the incident is actually the "three evils" investigation initiated by the European Union last year. As a multinational company, it seems inevitable that Huawei and ZTE will go to court in the case of increasingly overlapping competition in overseas markets.
Huawei has always believed that it has promoted the prosperity of the European data card market. Before 2005, in the global market including Europe, the annual sales volume of old-fashioned network cards based on PCMCIA interface was less than 6.5438+0.5 million; In 2006, Huawei launched the world's first USB data card. According to ABIResearch, in 2007, the growth rate of European mobile broadband market shipments was about 406%, and Huawei shipped 4.8 million pieces that year. Since then, with the launch of star products such as Huawei's rotating head USB data card and mobile WIFI data card, the European data card market has grown substantially.
However, since 2007, ZTE's "low price strategy" has disturbed this market. By the second quarter of 20 10, the lowest quotation for ZTE's network card was only 17 euros, which was lower than the cost. In 2007, the price of this product was still around 150 euros.
ZTE's low price not only gives Huawei a headache, but also affects other manufacturers in the market. In the third quarter of last year, after the European option company initiated a complaint, the EU initiated a "three-anti" investigation (anti-dumping, anti-safeguard measures and countervailing investigations) against the wireless network card manufacturers in China.
The European lte data card (next generation wireless communication) market is about to start. If the two companies can't successfully achieve the cross-licensing agreement, ZTE will continue to compete at low prices in the European market, and this behavior is likely to lead to a new "three evils" investigation again and "fish in the pool" again. Therefore, Huawei filed a lawsuit in the hope that ZTE could pay the overlapping patent fees.
However, insiders pointed out that Huawei has been spending a lot of money on patents, and this lawsuit is to seek "cost fairness."
"In 20 10, our investment in R&D was1655.6 billion yuan (US$ 2.5 billion). Huawei attaches importance to its own intellectual property rights and respects the intellectual property rights of others. We have signed a series of cross-licensing agreements with major manufacturers and intellectual property holders in the telecommunications field. In 20 10, we paid a patent license fee of USD 222 million to gain the right to legally use the patents and technologies of other leading companies in the industry, "Huawei stressed in a media statement.
Patent disputes mean commercial disputes.
According to the Securities Daily, Huawei's move is the same as Ericsson v. ZTE: ZTE has launched a direct competition with it in the European operator market.
In the last century, the word "Great China" became popular. The communication industry headed by Julong, Datang, ZTE and Huawei has become the name of the whole industry. At that time, the strength of the four enterprises was comparable, but before and after 2002, the performance of the four enterprises was quite different. The dragon declined, and the Tang Dynasty weakened, while ZTE and Huawei, both in Shenzhen, sprang up suddenly and went to Shanghai to expand Zhang Zhilu.
While leaving their peers far behind, ZTE and Huawei only target each other. And more and more similarities in the market have put them on the level of competitors again and again.
"In the international market, the development of mobile broadband will drive investment in related equipment and terminals, and the global layout of LTE networks will also bring new opportunities." ZTE described this in its 20 10 annual report.
As heroes think, so thought Bruce. Huawei also said in the 20 10 annual report that after 30 years of mobile communication development, LTE is finally expected to become the unified technology of mobile broadband in the future, and will develop at a faster speed than any previous mobile technology. It is estimated that in the next five years, the number of global LTE users will increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 400%, and it will reach 600 million in 20 15, realizing the leap from ubiquitous voice to ubiquitous broadband.
"Among the two products that Huawei chose to sue, the data card infringement project is not the core technology, and ZTE chose to sue Huawei's LTE infringement project in China, which just proves the focus of real competition between the two parties." An observer said.
"LTE technology is still in the experimental stage, but the two sides filed lawsuits against LTE in different countries, which also shows that both sides have high hopes for the LTE market." Mao, a senior communication observer, analyzed that the two sides will use patents as litigation weapons to block each other, hoping to "put pressure on each other through constant litigation to stop the other side's attack." Mao said, "If the court finds that a commodity is restricted from selling because of infringement, the other side can take the opportunity to occupy a vacant market share."