Huawei beats South Korean companies in patent lawsuits in the US

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When it comes to treating users, Huawei still has a lot to improve - it needs to be humble; however, when it comes to head-on litigation battles, Huawei has a lot to emulate for other companies - it does not give up easily.

The P10 "memory gate" or "flash memory gate" that broke out some time ago surprised many Huawei's loyal fans.

From a legal perspective, Huawei may not have engaged in practices of "passing inferior products off as good ones" or "cutting corners", but when it comes to clarifying these practices, it appears to be out of touch with its users.

This turns doubts into questions and may eventually turn into user resentment.

In fact, if users have knowledge of or special needs for memory brands, Huawei can fully adapt to user needs and launch new pricing strategies such as high-priced versions, low-priced versions and random versions, and use this to launch a round of old user care marketing.

However, in the battlefield of litigation, Huawei's approach of "sticking to the end" has indeed brought it benefits more often than not.

Its persistence in the UK allowed it to obtain lower patent licensing prices, and its persistence in the United States helped it repel the lawsuits filed by Korean companies.

Although the P10 "memory gate" scandal made Huawei a little embarrassed, Huawei has not lost in many battles with Korean companies or institutions.

After winning the first-instance lawsuit against Samsung in the Quanzhou Intermediate Court, resulting in Samsung being required to "pay 80.5 million yuan and 22 Galaxy phones being banned from sale", Huawei once again defeated a patent lawsuit initiated by a Korean company on the battlefield in the United States.

Recently, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California issued an order of revocation, dismissing the lawsuit filed by SPH AMERICA LLC (hereinafter referred to as SPH USA) against Huawei for alleged infringement of its nine patents, on the grounds that SPH was not qualified to sue because SPH USA was not the patent owner of the patents in question.

At this point, the lawsuit that began in 2013 and lasted for four years came to a temporary end with SPH America's lawsuit being dismissed.

However, although Huawei won the lawsuit against SPH USA, it does not mean that Huawei has not infringed the patents involved.

Because the war between Huawei and the real rights holders behind the scenes has not yet ended, there are still certain variables as to whether the two sides will fight or make peace in the end.

Crazy: Apple, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, HTC and other first batch of more than 20 mobile phone manufacturers were sued

In 2008, SPH USA took the lead in initiating patent lawsuits against Sony Ericsson, Kyocera, HTC and other three companies.

In 2009, 19 mobile phone manufacturers including Nokia and Motorola were sued in the United States by SPH USA for unauthorized use of third-generation mobile communication-related patent technologies such as WCDMA.

From 2013 to 2014, SPH USA brought Huawei, Samsung and four US telecom companies to court.

For a time, all well-known mobile phone and communications manufacturers became the targets of SPH USA's lawsuits.

So why is SPH America so crazy? Where does its confidence come from?

Confidence: SPH USA is the "spokesperson" or "agent" of the Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute

In fact, the company behind SPH is actually the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI).

Although ETRI is similar to a domestic public institution and is a non-corporate legal entity, its strength and accumulation in the field of communication technology cannot be underestimated.

In the 1990s, ETRI and Qualcomm reached a technical cooperation to introduce CDMA technology to Korea. In the process of promoting the popularization and application of CDMA technology, ETRI also accumulated a large number of patents.

According to information released by the World Intellectual Property Organization, as early as 2006, the number of patent applications submitted by ETRI ranked 166th in the world. At that time, Samsung ranked 14th in the world in terms of patent applications.

In 2006, ETRI exclusively licensed some of its patents to South Korea's SPH Company. In 2007, some of the patents were transferred to SPH USA. Since then, SPH USA has acted as ETRI's litigation agent in the United States.

Dispute: Is SPH USA a party to the infringement case or merely a litigation agent?

In the patent infringement case filed by SPH USA against Huawei, all nine patents involved in the lawsuit were owned by ETRI. So, considering the patent licensing cooperation between SPH USA and ETRI, can SPH USA sue Huawei?

In this regard, the United States District Court for the Southern District of California held that: ETRI merely used SPH USA as a litigation and licensing agent, and SPH USA could not actually take autonomous actions that violated the interests of ETRI (except for selecting targets and initiating lawsuits). Therefore, unlike general exclusive licenses, ETRI did not transfer the substantive rights of the patent to SPH USA, so SPH USA did not have the litigation qualifications provided for in Article III of the Constitution.

At the same time, the court also rejected SPH USA's request to add ETRI as a co-plaintiff on the grounds that since SPH USA did not have the qualifications to sue, it was not qualified to be a co-plaintiff.

The reason why the court made such a determination on the relationship between SPH USA and ETRI was due to a testimony provided by ETRI.

ETRI has stated that 1) it reserves the "right to make all decisions" regarding the lawsuit filed by SPH USA, and 2) the entity cannot "unilaterally" enter into a licensing agreement.

Simply put, the statement released by ETRI shows that what SPH USA obtained from ETRI was not an exclusive license in the traditional sense, but only a license and litigation agency.

This means that SPH USA cannot directly initiate lawsuits in its own name against companies suspected of infringement.

Reflection: Huawei has repeatedly fought off lawsuits from various institutions overseas. What can domestic mobile phones learn from this?

Obviously, after Huawei made Samsung taste the bitter fruit of defeat in China, it has now made the spokesperson of a Korean agency taste the bitter fruit of defeat in the United States.

It is worth mentioning that before Huawei, some major companies including Samsung have reached a settlement with ETRI, and only Huawei persisted to the end in the litigation confrontation.

A similar situation is the battle between Huawei and Unwired Planet International (hereinafter referred to as UPI) in the UK. Before the British court made a ruling, Samsung and Google, which were initially sued together, had already reached a settlement with UPI.

Judging from the final judgment, Huawei's persistence obviously paid off, because during the negotiation process, the patent licensing fee plan proposed by UPI was not supported by the court.

It can be seen that although some of Huawei’s performance in the P10 "memory gate" has caused complaints from many consumers, in the competition in the global patent litigation battlefield, Huawei still has a lot to learn from other domestic mobile phone manufacturers.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.