The Chinese Huawei and the Swedish Ericsson have signed a reciprocal concession agreement for licenses and patents held respectively. The goal ? Reinforce each other, in particular on 4G and 5G technologies.
It’s an amazing partnership… and yet one that makes sense for both groups. Huawei and Ericsson, the two telecom giants, known in particular for their 5G antennas, have reached an agreement for the reciprocal concession of licenses and patents.
An unexpected agreement between two rival firms
This unexpected partnership (the two firms are competitors and have fiercely competed for the European and American markets) concerns the 3GPP, ITU, IEEE and IETF standards relating to 3G, 4G and 5G cellular technologies. It should allow Huawei and Ericsson to strengthen each other… but also to step on each other’s toes less often in the field of intellectual property.
However, we learn that the agreement signed between the two parties also covers sales of network infrastructure and consumer devices. In addition, the two companies will be able to use their respective patented technological standards.
Huawei, a group that files a lot of patents…
On the Huawei side, we are pleased to have reached this agreement, which will allow the creation of a ” environment stronger in patents “commented Alan Fan, director of intellectual property within the Chinese group. The interested party also indicated that Huawei is at the top of the ranking with the European Patent Office, with more than 4,500 patent applications filed.
His counterpart at Ericsson, Christina Petersson, for her part hailed a “ balanced approach which will serve both parties, their customers and the companies using their respective products around the world. In its press release, the Scandinavian group presents itself as one of the leaders in the 5G market and claims to hold more than 60,000 patents.
These patents and licenses also represent a real financial windfall for Ericsson, which in fact expects that the revenue from licensing agreements will bring in 11 billion Swedish crowns (nearly 920 million euros) in 2023, highlights GSMArena.
Source : GSMArena
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