Huawei Shrugs Off Verizon Patent Talks As Common Business

Huawei said its patent talks with U.S. carrier Verizon is “common” business activity and such negotiations should not be politicized, days after a senator filed legislation to prevent the Chinese firm from seeking damages in American courts.

The company has demanded that Verizon pay licensing fees for more than 230 of the telecoms equipment maker’s patents and is seeking over $1 billion, a person has told Reuters, against a background of mounting U.S.-China trade tensions.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio has described Huawei’s demand as “baseless” and filed the legislation as an amendment to the U.S. defense law, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) – which places a broad ban on the use of federal money to buy Huawei products citing national security concerns.

“We simply don’t believe Marco Rubio’s amendment could be passed as law,” Huawei’s chief legal officer, Song Liuping, said at the company’s Shenzhen headquarters on Thursday.

Intellectual property (IP) rights “should not be politicized”, Song said. “IP is a private property issue and should be free from the competition, trade talks and any other allegations that countries have between them.”

Song added that Huawei has been discussing patent licensing with companies in the United States, Europe and other parts of the world on a regular basis.

While the measure proposed by Rubio is several steps from becoming law, lawmakers have successfully used the NDAA in the past to crack down on the Chinese firm.

Huawei, the world’s biggest telecommunications equipment maker and No.2 smartphone maker, denies its products pose a security threat and has sought to fight back in U.S. courts since Washington put it on an export blacklist last month.―Reuters