Huawei surprisingly happy about patent court ruling

There seems to be another perspective on the recent UK court ruling regarding the Unwired Planet vs Huawei patent licensing case.

While the Judge ruled that Huawei will need to pay for those Unwired Planet FRAND patents it uses in its handsets, the Chinese giant contacted Telecoms.com to point out that the amount it will have to pay was significantly reduced as a result of the case. As a result Huawei actually views the outcome as a victory.

“Huawei has received the decision of the High Court of England & Wales,” said the Huawei statement sent to us. “We welcome the decision by the Court that Unwired Planet’s royalty rate demands have been found to be unreasonable. Huawei is still evaluating the decision as well as its possible next steps. Huawei does not believe that this decision will adversely affect its global business operations.”

In the exhaustive document detailing the ruling, paragraph 5 reveals that in 2014 Unwired Planet wanted royalty rates to be paid at 0.2% of the ASP of a phone for its LTE patents. In paragraph 8 you can see that Huawei countered with a view that the rate should be 0.034%. There were various subsequent shifts in position but the two companies were unable to come to an agreement, hence the court case.

The table below shows the rates arrived at as a result of the court case. If you look at the 4G/LTE line you can see that the final royalty rates are a lot closer to Huawei’s desired outcome than Unwired Planet’s – hence the former’s pleasure at the ruling. Since Unwired Planet is also apparently happy at the outcome this seems to be a classic win-win situation. Hurrah!