We’ve all seen the script before. There is little stuff more exciting than courtroom battles between two giants in the technology world, as we’ve seen repeatedly with the Apple v. Samsung litigation. Now it is Huawei who is suing Samsung for infringing on its patents in the US and China.
The company alleges that the Korean giant, also the world’s largest smartphone maker by a fair bit, has used its patents on 4G cellular communications technology, operating systems and user-interface on its handsets.
At least in this case, Huawei isn’t seemingly out to take a chunk out of Samsung’s financial earnings, not just yet it seems. Instead it seemingly wants Samsung to get a licensing deal and value the company’s R&D costs.
Samsung’s reply hasn’t been received so far, though, in a statement it did say it will take appropriate action to defend Samsung’s business interests“.
Things may not turn out to be as simple as you think they will, however. Huawei, which hold 50,377 patents worldwide, pales in comparison to the 110,145 patents held by Samsung, meaning Samsung could be preparing a countersuit as we write. It is important for Huawei, though, which last year invested $9.2 billion or almost 15 percent of its annual revenue to Research & Development.
This isn’t the first time that Samsung is getting sued. Its lawsuits against Apple in 2011 would always spring to mind, though, most of the cases were dropped outside the US in 2014. With stagnating sales and increased competition from the Chinese companies, most-notably of Huawei, lawsuits aren’t possibly Samsung’s biggest concern right now.
