Huawei seeks to make money from a huge copyright store

Huawei wants to increase its patent revenue by signing dozens of licensing agreements with companies such as Nokia, BMW and Audi.

Huawei is working to monetize its patents through licensing deals with foreign companies, after US sanctions crippled its smartphone business. On December 22, Huawei said it had renewed a patent licensing agreement with Finnish rival Nokia, but did not disclose the terms of the agreement. The two network equipment manufacturers signed a licensing agreement in 2017.

Huawei revealed that this year it has signed more than 20 new patent licensing agreements or expansion agreements with companies in industries including smartphones, automobiles and telecommunications. Alan Fan, head of Huawei’s intellectual property department, shared that his technologies are supporting the automotive and other vertical industries in the process of digitization. Royalties received by Huawei will be funded

for the company’s R&D efforts. Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker, has expanded its patent licensing deals while seeking new revenue streams after being added to Washington’s trade blacklist in 2019. Huawei announced total revenue for 2021 of 636.8 billion yuan ($100 billion), down 29% from a year earlier as sales from the consumer business, including smartphones, fell 50% to 243.4 billion yuan left.

In the automotive sector, Huawei has reached licensing agreements with 15 car manufacturers globally, including Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW. According to Huawei’s estimates, about 15 million cars will benefit from Huawei’s patents this year, up from 8 million units in 2021. Fan said, the patents Huawei has licensed to other companies. The automaker is primarily involved in communication technologies such as 4G, but the terms of the agreements vary.

The new agreement with Nokia comes after Huawei signed a cross-licensing agreement with Oppo on mobile technologies including 5G. Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei asked the Intellectual Property (IP) department to increase efforts to convert the huge source of patents into revenue through “reasonable prices and “appropriate profit generation” for the company. R&D investments, according to a company memo published in April.

Total revenue from patent licensing reached about $1.3 billion between 2019 and 2021. Last year, Huawei’s royalty income for the first time exceeded the costs it paid to use the technology for the first time. from other companies. However, Fan said he does not consider intellectual property licensing a business or rely on it as a major source of revenue.

In 2021, Huawei filed a record 6,952 patent applications, up 27% from 2020, through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). Thus, Huawei became the world’s largest PCT filing company for 5 consecutive years. The company topped the number of patents granted to private enterprises in China in 2021, followed by Internet giants Tencent and Oppo, according to a report by China’s National Intellectual Property Administration. earlier this month.

According to SCMP