Huawei will get paid by the U.S. despite Trump administration efforts to erase it from the supply chain as it owns the most patents on 5G technology, according to a new study.
The study, cited by Bloomberg, was made by two research firms which identified the inventions most closely connected to the 5G standards and found that six companies owned more than 80% -- Huawei, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Nokia, Ericsson and Qualcomm, the only U.S.-based company in the group.
The U.S government has launched a number of salvos, including a banned the sale of any silicon made with U.S. know-how that is hurting the Chinese company's aspirations to grow in cutting-edge fields.
"Even if they hire some other company to build the 5G infrastructure, they still have to pay the Chinese company because of the intellectual contribution to develop the technology," said Deepak Syal, director of GreyB Services Pte., a technology research firm that conducted the study with analytics firm Amplified AI Inc.
The study looked at about 6,400 inventions declared "essential" to 5G by their owners that had active patents somewhere in the world as of Dec. 31, 2019. By comparing the wording of the patent to the standard, the team of 25 researchers deemed 1,658 to be patents "core" to 5G.
Based on the study, all of the companies were found to be padding their patent submissions to ensure they would be able to enforce their rights later, and in an effort to increase the amount they'd be able to collect in royalties.
"Companies over-declare pretty equally, so reducing everyone's share by 75% or so yields the same pecking order," said Jorge Contreras, a law professor at the University of Utah who's written about determining what is "essential" to a standard.
Huawei has collected more than $1.4 billion in licensing revenue and has paid some $6 million to other companies, it said in a court filing in its patent dispute with Verizon Communications Inc.
"Huawei creates plenty of its own intellectual property; we don't need to steal anyone else's," Ben Howes, a Huawei spokesman, said in an opinion video. The company said it put together the video "in response to the U.S. government's attempts to prevent Huawei from collaborating with academic institutions and innovating with our R&D and patents."
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