At the end of June, Qualcomm had filed a lawsuit against Meizu at the Intellectual Property Court in Beijing. The company was seeking 520 million Yuan in the lawsuit that claimed Meizu had infringed on multiple patents that Qualcomm owned. Meizu does not use Qualcomm chips in their smartphones, but they were allegedly using 3G and 4G patents that hadn’t been licensed to them. Additionally, Meizu was not paying royalties, nor had asked for permission to make use of these patents either.
It seems the two companies have yet to settle their differences as Qualcomm has taken this fight to three additional countries. Qualcomm has filed a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission (aka the ITC), they have filed a patent infringement action in Germany with the Mannheim Regional Court, and they are initiating an infringement-seizure action in France in an attempt to obtain evidence for a possible future infringement action in that country.
Back in June, Meizu did publicly say they would be happy to pay royalties for the patents they were using, as long as the licensing fee was “reasonable.” So it sounds like Qualcomm and Meizu were unable to negotiate a licensing fee that would satisfy both companies. Qualcomm says Meizu has refused to negotiate a licensing agreement and continues selling products around the world that infringe on their patents.
Don Rosenberg, the executive vice president and general counsel at Qualcomm, says Meizu is leaving them no other choice but to take legal action against them. Patent laws are in place for a reason and the company is simply protecting the patents they were awarded. Qualcomm feels that if Meizu isn’t happy with the licensing deal they were offered, then they should stop selling products that infringe on other company’s patents.
Meizu has not issued a public statement about these three new complaints at this time.
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