Ericsson’s renewal of its patent deal with Huawei indicates that the Chinese networking vendor still leads the world in 5G patents, despite years of sanctions from the United States.
The companies have renewed a long-term global patent cross-licensing agreement covering cloud-native 5G patents and much more. Both companies hold a wealth of 5G patents and need to ensure access to evolving 5G technology, despite political pressure not to use Huawei’s cellular technology from the U.S., UK and Europe.
Huawei is widely recognized as holding the most 5G patents in the world. IPlytics reported in April 2022 that Huawei held the most 5G patents granted, followed by Qualcomm, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Ericsson and ZTE, the firm reported.
“[It’s] keeping the status quo,” Dave Bolanz, research director at the Dell’Oro Group said of the Ericsson deal.
Huawei made $560 million from its patent licensing deals in 2022. The company is keen to exploit its patent horde more, and recently announced royalty rates for a variety of 4G, 5G, WiFi and IoT devices.
Ericsson is following in the wake its Scandinavian rival, Nokia, which tersely announced an extension of its patent license agreement with Huawei in December 2022.