Samsung loses 10 patent infringement cases against Huawei since 2016
South Korea-based electronics manufacturer Samsung has lost 10 of the 15 patent infringement cases it filed in China against Huawei out of the court rulings announced since 2016, media reports said on Wednesday.
Analysts said that this outcome won’t have a major impact on Samsung’s business in China, but it also reflects domestic handset producers’ improving research and innovation ability, which may further put pressure on traditional technology giants.
On September 30, China’s State Intellectual Property Office announced the invalidation of Samsung’s five patents among the eight cases that Samsung launched against Huawei for alleged intellectual property violations since September 2016, according to a statement on the office’s website.
Only two of the eight patents involved in the filings were effective, with the one remaining patent also partly invalidated, the statement said.
Huawei and Samsung have been embroiled in an intensifying patent battle in recent years.
Since 2016, Samsung has 16 similar lawsuits against Huawei for intellectual property infringement. The South Korean electronics giant has lost 10 cases so far, with one patent still waiting for court judgment, news website ifeng.com reported on Wednesday. That translates to a patent invalidation rate of 62.5 percent, the report noted.
The disputed technology patents involve graphic displays, mobile phone cameras, screen controls and some basic communication infrastructure technologies.
Huawei declined to comment when contacted by the Global Times on Wednesday.
Wang Yanhui, head of the Shanghai-based Mobile China Alliance, told the Global Times on Wednesday that the patent ruling is not likely to have any impact on Samsung’s sales in the Chinese market, as the 10 invalidated patents are just “a drop in the bucket” of Samsung’s patents pool.
Also, “the electronic equipment maker can either seek to overturn the result through an administrative lawsuit, or pay royalties to use the patents,” Wang said, noting that patent lawsuits have been utilized by electronics manufacturers as a weapon against competitors in recent years.
But for domestic electronic equipment suppliers like Huawei, the win is “symbolic,” shedding light on the increasing competiveness of domestic technologies, Wang said.
In 2016, telecom equipment supplier ZTE Corp filed 4,123 applications for patents under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, ranking first in patent applications, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization. That was followed by Huawei with 3,692 patent applications.
The rise of domestic smartphone makers may pressure traditional technology giants such as Samsung, which have already experienced slumping sales in China, Wang added.
The patent war between Chinese smartphone maker Huawei Technologies Co and its South Korean rival Samsung Electronics Co has been in the headlines again recently, after China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) announced its latest rulings on eight cases.
The SIPO’s Patent Reexamination Board announced on September 30 that five patents involved in Samsung’s lawsuits against Huawei are invalid, one is partly invalid and only two remain valid. At this point, 10 of the 16 patent infringement lawsuits Samsung filed against Huawei in China have been determined invalid, accounting for 62.5 percent of the total.
The patent battle started in May 2016 when Huawei first sued Samsung in both China and the US for alleged infringement of its smartphone patents, involving several of its cellular communications technology and software inventions used in Samsung smartphones. In July 2016, Samsung countersued Huawei over six alleged infringement patents.
In April this year, Huawei scored the first point when the Quanzhou Intermediate People’s Court in East China’s Fujian Province ordered Samsung’s Chinese subsidiaries to compensate Huawei for patent infringement.
Intellectual property disputes among technology giants are common, and Chinese smartphone makers used to be the passive defendants in such cases. But Huawei’s lawsuits against Samsung indicate that the table has turned. As Chinese companies have improved their global competitiveness substantially over the years, it is inevitable for those aiming to get on the world’s top-ranked list to take a more proactive approach in facing patent disputes with their rivals.
So far, Huawei seems to be winning the patent battle against Samsung in China, but it still needs to watch its back and prepare for ongoing lawsuits in the US. Given their general lack of experience in dealing with patent wars, Chinese companies should learn from Huawei to guard against potential patent infringement by rivals and be fully prepared for patent disputes.
More importantly, Chinese companies should continue to beef up their research and development efforts to enhance innovation and develop their own core technologies, which are the foundations of intellectual property. Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei once predicted that there would be a world war over patents in the coming five to eight years, so Huawei needed to develop a clear strategy for it. The same is true for other Chinese companies.