Domestic mobile phone industry at loggerheads? Huawei and ZTE only talk about patents

Recently, the 21st century Economic report reporter learned that ZTE, Huawei has to include millet, OPPO, step by step, such as mobile phone manufacturers, "lawyer Letter", alleging that the latter violated its WCDMA patent.

Reporters on this matter, millet, OPPO, Vivo and other mobile phone manufacturers, the other side unanimously replied that "uninformed." However, a person familiar with the matter told reporters: "(ZTE) is really playing, as long as some well-known domestic mobile phones, have received ZTE's letter of attorney." ”

ZTE said to reporters: "ZTE is one of the richest manufacturers of domestic patents, and we respect IPR protection actions conducive to the healthy development of the terminal industry." Other belong to the company confidential, inconvenient external release. ”

Huawei has not replied to the letter of attorney. However, Huawei responded to reporters: "Huawei attaches great importance to protecting its own patents, and Huawei also respects the intellectual property rights of others." ”

The reporter consulted the domestic well-known patent lawyers, Big Bang law firm Shiang, Shiang agent of most of the domestic mobile phone terminal patent cases. He told reporters: "It is only a letter of attorney." It is impossible to predict how the next step will evolve in the current environment. However, Shiang that: "Patent is a powerful competitive tool, whether it is the market competition, or to seek differentiated development, mobile phone manufacturers if they want to a higher level, they have to go through this hurdle." ”

Shiang said: "The two sides will negotiate for some time." If ZTE, Huawei and other domestic handset manufacturers can not agree, will certainly bring lawsuits, as to when and to which companies to sue, for the time being unclear. ”

Market Anxiety Brewing patent war

China's smartphone competition has been white-hot, and the market has come to a key node.

In October this year, the well-known analyst IDC gave 2014 years Q3 Global smartphone market report, the report pointed out: Millet about 18 million shipments to become the world's third-largest expert machine manufacturers, accounting for the global market share of 5.3%. At the same time, millet Q2 to 12% of the market share to become China's largest smartphone manufacturers. In addition, Oppo in July this year to replace Samsung, as the domestic 4G mobile phone manufacturers Most shipments, and continued to date.

And in 2014 Q1, Q2 IDC report, the world's third-largest expert machine manufacturer or Huawei. In Q3, Huawei mobile phone shipments of 16.5 million, and millet shipments gap is only 1.5 million.

"Domestic mobile phone competition is becoming more and more stalemate. "The Secretary general of the Mobile China Alliance said. "Moreover, the level of competition from the original price, channel, up to the brand." Now, patents are becoming a potent weapon. ”

Looking back on history, in the smartphone market in 2011, Samsung, Apple, two of the industry over 90% of the profits of the company also broke out large-scale patent lawsuits. Between 2011 and 2012, the two sides launched dozens of lawsuits in 9 countries, and Apple demanded the ban on Samsung's Galaxy products, while Samsung wanted to pull the iphone 4S and IPad 2 into the local country blacklist.

Now, China, the world's largest mobile phone market, the fierce market competition behind, a patent war is inevitable?

"Domestic smartphone shipments continue to climb, which also provides a good opportunity for patent holders to maintain." On the one hand, when the cost of rights is unchanged, the benefit will be increased; On the other hand, the need to curb competition through patents is stronger. Li Junhui, a special researcher at the Intellectual Property Research center of Cesl, told reporters, "the opportunity is very good for patents, especially for core patents or basic patent companies." ”

In Li Junhui's view, if judging from the number of patents, "ZTE, Huawei, a large number of businesses, more extensive, more than the total amount of patents, in addition, Lenovo has just acquired Motorola, the acquisition list also contains a lot of patents." "and other handset manufacturers have relatively few patents," and, mainly use, appearance and other patents, not invention patents.

Reporter recently from the State Intellectual Property Office website search China patent announcement, cool, OPPO, millet, Vivo, Gionee, the evil spirit of the invention authorization of 334, 103, 10, 7, 7, 4, Lenovo invention authorized number of 554, but Lenovo acquired Motorola has about 2,300 pieces of invention patent authorization , making up for Lenovo's patented short board. In contrast, Huawei, ZTE's patent licensing are: 22169, 14,493.

Huawei said in response to reporters: As of August 31, 2014, Huawei has applied for a total of 12,000 invention patents related to terminal products, more than 1000 appearance patents. At the same time has obtained China's patent authorization 1600 pieces, Europe and the United States and other overseas patents authorized more than 500. Huawei's consumer business is currently growing by about 1300 patent applications a year.

Li Junhui said: ZTE, Huawei, in the field of communications has a deeper accumulation, so their patent conflict with other handset manufacturers, but also mainly related to their basic communications patents. ”

However, Li Junhui that "domestic handset manufacturers are the most of the war of words, very few will escalate into litigation, most enterprises will resolve through negotiations, a licensing agreement, or cross-licensing agreement." ”

Lu Qianho, general manager of ZTE Terminal Strategy Development Department, said: "ZTE is optimistic about domestic mobile phones to increase IPR protection and collect legal and reasonable patent fees, which is helpful to the innovation and sustainable development of industrial chain." ZTE supports various forms of cooperation such as patent fees, patent licensing, cooperative development and leasing. ”

Behind the Patent wars

Patents are a powerful weapon of competition. But it should be pointed out that the completion of the patent layout also requires high costs, each patent holder has long-term research and development investment, as well as huge research and development funding support.

In recent years, ZTE and Huawei have continued to be in the Patent field layout. "The two companies have the highest number of patent applications in the world each year. Lei, a deputy researcher at the Intellectual Property Research center of the State Intellectual Property Office, told reporters that the application fee for each patent was tens of thousands of to hundreds of thousands of, and that "two companies have only a patent application fee of $ hundreds of millions of a year, not to mention the cost of research and development." "Previously, Huawei announced that the 2013 Research and development investment of 33 billion yuan, accounting for 14% of its total income."

Huawei told reporters: "Huawei consumer Business has become a member of the international and domestic core standards organizations, participation in the IEEE, IETF, 3GPP, GSMA, ETSI, WFA, BBF, NFC Forum, onem2m, DLNA, UPnP, CCSA and other standards organizations, More than 10 chairmen/Vice chairmen, speaker and other positions in the above organizations. More than 350 standard proposals were accepted. In addition, Huawei has signed a series of cross licensing agreements with Samsung and Apple.

"Lenovo, Tcl is the acquisition to complete the patent layout, Lenovo acquired Motorola, with a large number of patents." He told reporters, Tcl bought the old European mobile phone manufacturers Alcatel, the latter and many companies around the world have patented cross licensing agreement. ”

But for more domestic handset manufacturers, there is no strong foundation, lack of strong research and development team, funds, "there is no relevant intellectual property field of the legal team to support, even to buy a patent, many companies do not know what to buy, how to buy." Old Yao told reporters, "with the national intellectual property pattern gradually mature, enterprise internationalization in-depth, mobile phone patent war is only a matter of time, the lack of patent enterprises to pay for their own short board." ”

Li Junhui also pointed out: "Now the State attaches great importance to intellectual property rights, but also in the north to set up a wide range of three intellectual property courts, specializing in intellectual property disputes." This has great positive significance to the domestic intellectual property layout. For some lazy in the layout of the manufacturers, this is also a kind of beat, to the point. ”

"A big wave of patent wars"

Domestic mobile phone patent war is still brewing. But patent lawsuits between domestic handset makers and international companies have never stopped and intensified.

As early as the end of 2010, Nokia sued Shanghai's Deloitte in China, saying the latter violated Nokia's 8 basic patents.

This may be the domestic mobile phone in the patent field of the top priority. "The impact on the mobile industry will be greater than Qualcomm's antitrust. Because if Nokia wins, the prosecution of other mobile phone companies will have a case to follow. and Ericsson and other companies can do the same. By then, the domestic mobile phone industry patent infringement lawsuits will come in droves, the real patent litigation war will also be kicked off. ”

Ericsson and Nokia have invested more in innovation than ZTE or Huawei. At present, Ericsson, which holds more than 35,000 patents, has 24000 research and development staff, spends more than 5 billion dollars on research, and has 10,000 patents, 30,000 patents and 3,800 patents in Nokia's communications network business.

"These are one of the results that Nokia has invested in over 50 billion euros over the past 20 years. "Companies that use Nokia's innovations to produce products that meet these standards should also meet their obligations under fair and non-discriminatory conditions to obtain permission to use these patents," said Mark Advanced, head of Nokia's Marvell Department, in an interview with reporters. ”

At present, the Shanghai High People's court has heard 5 of them, the determination of infringement is not established, the remaining 3 are still in trial. Nokia did not endorse its verdict, and has now filed a lawsuit against the Supreme People's Court to request a retrial. "Nokia insists that it needs to obtain some of Nokia's patent licenses," Mark replied. The lawsuit was not our preferred option, but Huaqin rejected our attempts to negotiate a deal on the licensing terms of Nokia's patents. We will continue to sue China for free use of our long-term investment results. ”

"In the medical sector, developing a new drug typically takes 10-15 years and costs about 9 billion-13 billion yuan." In return, pharmaceutical companies have exclusive monopoly sales rights within the validity of a patent. It's a way for them to protect their investments. The mechanism of the telecommunication industry should be open to some, in the telecommunication industry, we can realize the protection of research and development investment through patent authorization. Ericsson in response to reporters, for example, "the principle of protection of intellectual property rights in each industry is interlinked." No one has the incentive to invest in research and development because there is no reasonable patent income. "In January this year, Samsung paid 650 million of billions of dollars to Ericsson and was granted a patent by Ericsson."

Patent disputes are more frequent in the international market. Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Telecommunications Research Institute of Intellectual Property Patent research researcher Zhou told reporters: "The Indian market patent dispute has shown an upward trend, we aim at Intelligent Terminal Patent analysis, to make a patent warning." ”

India is currently the world's second largest handset manufacturers, but also most domestic handset manufacturers to enter the international market bridgehead. Huawei, ZTE, Millet, Gionee and Lenovo have all made breakthroughs in India. According to the reporter understands, in the Indian market month sales more than million Taiwan's domestic handset manufacturer has been sued the patent infringement.

Li Junhui pointed out: "No way, the domestic start late, the foundation is thin, we are the pursuers." "He told reporters:" In fact, domestic mobile phones can hold a regiment, together with the international handset manufacturers do cross licensing. This can clear up some patent barriers, thus reducing the cost of opening up the international market and reducing risk. ”

From this point of view, the ZTE, Huawei's "lawyer letter", may become a domestic phone rewrite the patent layout of the starting point.