China Mobile phone goes Overseas (IV.): Patent dispute

"A smartphone, a variety of patent costs have accounted for the ex-factory price of about 8%~10%." "Yu Long cool deputy President Li Bin told the first financial daily reporter." Taking Microsoft as an example, by signing a patent license agreement, it charges about 5 to 20 dollars for each cell phone and tablet computer in 20 companies such as HTC and ZTE. By 2017, only Chinese companies are expected to give Microsoft at least 3.8 billion dollars in patent licensing fees.

European and American market relative norms, intellectual property rights system, many want to enter the European and American market of domestic mobile phone companies struggling, patent is one of the main reasons.

Patent barriers in European and American markets

First, the cost of patent application is high. Some technology companies have said that the light to write an international patent on the cost of more than 100,000 yuan, to apply for U.S. patent to spend another 100,000 yuan, and European patent application is about to spend more than 200,000 yuan.

Second, patent litigation is much more troublesome. The United States International Trade Commission, the famous 337 survey, specifically for foreign companies in the United States in the case of intellectual property infringement. Since August 2011, ZTE has undergone 5 337 surveys. ZTE won the lawsuit 4 times in a row this August, but its attorneys ' fees and time costs are already low.

Third, patent infringement is costly. This is a reference to HTC's experience. Last December, a British judge ruled that HTC had violated the "transmitter and mobile base station regulator Architecture" patent, leading to the sale of HTC One mini in the UK. At the end of the month, the local judge in Munich, Germany, also ruled that HTC violated Nokia's patents for NFC and Bluetooth communications, and that almost all smartphones were not sold in Germany.

The strategy of domestic mobile phone

First, protect yourself by patent. ZTE has a defensive patent layout for its core technology, usually applying a certain number of patents around it to form the necessary patent portfolio. On the one hand, to protect the core technology, on the one hand to confuse opponents, increase the likelihood of the opponent's patent invalid. 2013, the ZTE Patent Cooperation Agreement (Patent Cooperation Treaty, or PCT) the number of applications in the world ranked second, ranked first in China.

There is a way to solve the patent dispute. Huawei's approach is to exchange patents, optimize Huawei's own resources and consolidate partnerships overseas, through the exchange of proprietary resources with its partners on telecoms equipment and smart hardware.

Of course, Lenovo, through the acquisition of a brain to take more than 2,000 patents. But think about 2.9 billion of the investment, and the current loss of Motorola's mobile phone business, the value of this patent is not worth it? Lenovo CEO Yang said he was confident of helping Motorola move to the profit in the 4 to 6 quarters of the takeover. We wait and see.