Nearly half of global smartphone OEMs have paid royalties to ZTE
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On October 27, 2024, according to IP Fray, Lenovo filed a lawsuit against ZTE for patent infringement with the High Court of the UK on October 21, 2024, case number HP-2024-0000038.
The plaintiffs include Lenovo Group, Lenovo (USA), Lenovo Technology (UK) Limited, Motorola Mobility Limited, Motorola Mobility UK Limited, Lenovo Innovation Limited (Hong Kong) (collectively referred to as "Lenovo"), while the defendants include ZTE, ZTE (UK) Limited, Nubia Technology Limited, and three UK distributors (collectively referred to as "ZTE").
More information about this case, as well as the patents involved, has not yet been published.
Lenovo's proactive lawsuit against ZTE this time is speculated to be a response from Lenovo to ZTE's patent licensing offer or lawsuit.
On April 25, 2021, JLL released the "China Communication Industry and Intellectual Property Market Report", which highlighted that ZTE's patented technology is worth over 45 billion yuan ($6.3B), and it is expected that intellectual property will bring the company 4.5-6 billion yuan ($630M-841M) in revenue during the five-year period from 2021 to 2025.
Since then, ZTE and third-party entities that have spun off patents from ZTE have successively engaged in litigation disputes with mobile phone manufacturers such as Samsung, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi, and TNNO in multiple jurisdictions including China, Germany, and the United States.
At present, mobile phone manufacturers that have reached patent licensing agreements with ZTE include Apple, Samsung, OPPO, and TNNO. After OPPO reached a settlement with ZTE in August this year, it is highly likely that vivo has also reached a licensing agreement with ZTE.
These OEMs account for nearly half of global smartphone market.
As the eighth largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world, Lenovo has a global market share of about 5%. Currently, major markets are showing a steady growth trend, especially in North America, where Lenovo Motorola has the third highest market share.
To achieve the goal of patent licensing, ZTE must strive to promote licensing programs for other OEMs as much as possible.
On the other hand, in the past two years, Lenovo has achieved more or less good results in litigation with InterDigital and Ericsson in the UK.
Especially in the lawsuit against InterDigital, the final royalties determined by the UK court was closer to Lenovo's price, which made Lenovo more inclined to the UK court determine the global license fee it should pay. Just a few days ago, Lenovo also received a favorable verdict in the case against Ericsson in the UK Court of Appeal.
At present, it is unclear whether ZTE has also sued Lenovo in court.
original (Wechat): 联想起诉中兴通讯