The mere figure of $ 2.5 in royalty per device is not representative of the rich content of the more than two-hour event attended by Francis Gurry, former Director General of WIPO. Dr Song Liuping, Chief Legal Officer of Huawei, and Jason Ding, Head of Intellectual Property of Huawei, answered reporters’ questions about 5G.

The Sino-American trade war has taken Huawei, a leading network infrastructure company and a true pioneer of 5G, hostage. The company nevertheless remains true to its philosophy: innovation above all. Rather than jealously guarding our technologies, we want to allow the entire industry to benefit from them through licensing.

Huawei believes, like its competitors Apple and Samsung, that the industry should not be penalized by an increase in royalties due to patents. Cellular MS should not be used to tax other components. This is why we have capped royalties so as not to hamper innovation. Other companies are less scrupulous: InterDigital charges $ 1.2 per device while it contributes little to 5G. Qualcomm asks for up to $ 13 per device, an amount regularly criticized. Nokia capped its royalty at 3 euros, and Ericsson undoubtedly even more.

The upstream publication of maximum royalty rates provides essential transparency. Standards bodies might require them, but member companies focused on monetizing patents generally object to such disclosures being mandatory.

Huawei’s announcement certainly has political implications. If a company with little of its own 5G SEP took a stand on royalty rates, it would be suspected to be simply interested in reducing license costs (as an example, Qualcomm referred to an internal presentation by ‘Apple whose strategic objective was to “devalue” the SEPs). Huawei’s head of intellectual property Jason Ding said Huawei wants to be a top contributor, but not to demand the best royalty rates. This attitude is consistent with Apple’s intellectual property policies. This is also good news for the automotive industry (of which Huawei is a very important supplier).

A company with few patents would probably seek to reduce the cost of licenses. Huawei is pursuing a policy in favor of the industry here, with a reasonable cap on the royalty.

I think the $ 2.50 per device royalty cap will be mentioned a lot in the coming years in 5G royalty litigation. I wouldn’t be surprised if Samsung, for example, would refer to this figure in its ongoing litigation with Ericsson. And if I were a device maker that had to defend itself against InterDigital, I would say that a reasonable royalty cap per device for InterDigital’s patents is only a fraction of the $ 1.20 it is asking for. , for a fairly small wallet compared to Huawei’s

Source: Agence Ecofin