Huawei has reportedly asked Verizon to pay more than $1 billion in terms of patent licensing fees for Huawei’s several patents. The report was published by The Wall Street Journal and states that the Chinese tech giant is asking for a large sum of money from the US telecom company for ‘solving the patent licensing issue’.
The patents, more than 230 of them actually, are primarily concerning Huawei’s core network and wireless technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT). It was further reported that the money being demanded is $1 billion in aggregate. It was also stated that Verizon didn’t make use of this equipment directly but rather through twenty of its vendors since the said equipment constitutes the core networking machinery at base station and signal routing level. The report by Reuters also said that some of these vendors had been approached by Huawei directly.
Verizon spokesperson, Rich Young, said, ‘These issues are larger than just Verizon. Given the broader geopolitical context, any issue involving Huawei has implications for our entire industry and also raise national and international concerns.’ The move has been made amidst a raging trade tussle that is ongoing between the US and China.
The US kicked things off by placing the Chinese tech company into a trade blacklist. US companies, including Google, Intel, and Qualcomm were forced into altering their arrangements with Huawei. Before all of this, the Chief Financial Officer of Huawei was taken in custody based on allegations that she was violating the US trade sanctions against Iran.
Huawei has taken all of these blows quite well. Once Google retracted its support, the company stated that it had its own operating system ready and that there was no need for worrying. The said OS has been named HongMeng OS. The company is also gearing up towards manufacturing its own hardware chips.
