ZTE Welcomes Rulings by Düsseldorf District Court

Decisions strengthen ZTE’s defence against Huawei’s patent claims

SHENZHEN, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ZTE Corporation (ZTE) welcomes two decisions made by the Düsseldorf district court in Germany on 21 March, 2013 in favor of the company, strengthening the company’s defense against claims by Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. over some patents related to LTE technology.

The court dismissed all of Huawei’s claims in the litigation over European patent EP 2 033 335 (EP’335) related to both base stations and mobile terminals. In the litigation over European patent EP 2 090 050 (EP ‘050), the court decided to stay the case and refer to the European Court of Justice (EJC) several questions concerning the application of the European Union competition law.

ZTE regards intellectual property as central to the company’s business, and is committed to increasing its competitiveness in patent assets. ZTE was ranked No. 1 in international patent applications by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in each of the past two years. In 2012, ZTE filed 37% more patents under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) than a year earlier, and became the first Chinese company to be among the Top-10 patent applicants at the European Patent Office.

As a technology-intensive industry, the number of patents related to telecommunications is measured in the hundreds of thousands. ZTE is committed to an approach based on collaboration, leveraging cross-licensing agreements and bundling. The company opposes the use of non-core patents as a tactic to obstruct others, which creates unnecessary additional costs. ZTE advocates a win-win approach to foster healthy and rational competition, and cooperates with leading industry patent holders including Qualcomm, Siemens and Ericsson.

The global telecommunications industry is undergoing a major transition, and the supply chain will become more consolidated. In this environment, ZTE aims to work with telecommunications operators, and partners including Qualcomm and Ericsson to explore paths that will lead to a more healthy ecosystem, and welcomes all competition that won’t undermine the development of the industry.