MediaTek expects little impact from lawsuit brought by Huawei

Taipei, July 20 (CNA) Taiwan-based smartphone IC designer MediaTek Inc. said on Friday that a lawsuit brought by Chinese smartphone brand Huawei Technologies Co. over a patent infringement accusation is expected to have little impact on its operations.

In an announcement posted Friday on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, where shares of MediaTek are traded, the Taiwanese IC designer said that as the accusation has entered a legal stage, it would not comment.

But MediaTek emphasized the legal action taken by Huawei is expected to have little impact on its operations.

MediaTek's statement came after China-based WeChat PRIP Research reported Thursday night that Huawei has filed a lawsuit with a Chinese district court, accusing MediaTek of infringing its patents.

Citing patent exports, the report said the infringement mentioned in the lawsuit probably involved 5G cellular network communication technologies.

The report said the lawsuit showed Huawei is probing the possibility of asking for patent licensing fees from the chip supplier. Currently, Huawei is asking for patent licensing fees from providers of mobile devices for end-users.

According to statistics compiled by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Huawei, South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. and U.S.-based Qualcomm Inc. were the top three patent applicants in 2023.

In terms of the number of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), the WIPO's data showed Huawei filed 6,494 applications last year, the largest in the world.