China's mobile phone industry is brewing new ideas for a way out in the face of soaring international patent disputes. According to insiders, an organization called “China Mobile Phone Alliance” was set up in Shanghai at the end of April. “The alliance was seemingly designed to spark the synergy of China’s mobile industry", a senior officer from a member company of the alliance said, "but in essence is to create a patent pool to cope with the furious wars over international patent ownership.”
The alliance has members from over 30 top domestic telecommunication IC design firms, mobile phone solutions firms and mobile phone manufacturers, including frontline mobile phone manufacturers such as Lenovo, ZTE, Konka, TCL, Coolpad and G-Five, large scale solution providers like Longcheer, Wingtech and Huaqin, as well as chip makers such as Spreadtrum, RDA and GalaxyCore.
“The members are all industrial leaders”, an insider commented. What is worth mentioning, the renowned chip manufacturers, Mediatek and Huawei, are not in the list.
“Formation of such an alliance is largely due to the increasing IP cases faced by the Chinese mobile phone markers on the international market”, the senior management officer said.
In February this year, Nokia filed a lawsuit against HuaQin Telecom Technology Co.,Ltd. over infringement of its eight core patents for invention, claiming a compensation of approximately 90,000,000 yuan. The court has accepted the case.
G’Five, the mobile phone manufacturer headquartered in Shenzhen with the largest outbound shipment volume, was sued by Nokia in Hong Kong over infringement of design patents and other IP related matters. Altogether 13 categories of G’Five products were sealed up in Hong Kong.
In April, another international telecommunication giant Ericsson sued ZTE over the latter's mobile phone products, claming that ZTE products infringe its GSM and CDMA patents and requesting the courts in the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany to ban the sales of ZTE mobile phones within their respective territories.
All of the three firms that were caught up in lawsuits have signed up with the “China Mobile Phone Alliance”.
“The firms are vulnerable when facing such challenges on their own”, the senior management officer said. “Although the firms take a lead in the domestic market, they do not stand on a high ground in the international patent battle fields. GSM-related patents, in particular, are overwhelmed by the Western countries, while GSM products take up the mainstream of Chinese manufacturers.”
Under such a context, the formation of “China Mobile Phone Alliance” is considered as a secret weapon of the domestic operators. “In total, the alliance members possess over ten thousand patents in telecommunication technology. By forming a “patent pool” on such a basis and implementing a rights-sharing strategy, they can put to a full play the overall patent strength of the alliance members”, the director of one corporate member said.
Not everyone is optimistic about the scheme. “Most of the patents are peripheral patents, and the number of core patents is limited”, an officer with one of the corporate members said, “the members may purchase patents in groups to share the right of use and reduce costs.
(Source: www. tech.163.com, Translated by China IP)
