Huawei Sued T-Mobile for Multiple Patent Infringements in the United States

Huawei Sued T-Mobile for Multiple Patent Infringements in the United States

On January 15, 2016, the world's leading information and communications solutions provider Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

(Hereinafter referred to as "Huawei") continuously initiated four cases of patent infringement litigation to the United

States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The defendant of all these cases is T-Mobile, which is a subsidiary

of Deutsche Telekom AG and belongs to the FreeMove alliance. T-Mobile operates GSM networks in Western Europe and the United

States and participates in network operations in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia through financial means. The company

currently has 109 million users, and it is one of the world's largest mobile phone companies. T-Mobile USA, formerly known as

Voice-Stream, was acquired by Deutsche Telekom in May 2001. Today, T-Mobile USA, which has 1.6 million users, is the third

largest operator in the US market, and it is the second largest fastest growing company, after Verizon Wireless.
Industry Background before Case Descriptions

The FreeMove alliance was founded in April, 2003 and its founding members included Telefonica Moviles (a Spanish mobile

operator), T-Mobile, TIM (a subsidiary of Italia Mobile), etc. France Telecom's mobile subsidiary Orange formally joined the

alliance at the end of 2003. The Alliance was founded to establish a defense body to compete with the British mobile

communications giant Vodafone and fight its influence in Europe.

However, in years past, the rival of FreeMove alliance, Vodafone alliance was still expanding its business rapidly across the

world through frequent acquisitions and mergers. In 2011, Vodafone and the Conexus Mobile Alliance that included Hutchison

Telecommunications Hong Kong formed a super alliance covering 600 million users worldwide. In the first phase, its network

cooperators included Hutchison Hong Kong, Taiwan Far EasTone, Japan NTT DoCoMo, the Philippines SMART, Singapore StarHub,

Thailand TrueMove, etc.

In recent years, the plaintiff Huawei has a close relationship with Vodafone. In May - June, 2015, Huawei and Vodafone's

global enterprise business signed a memorandum of understanding for the official establishment of a new strategic alliance

partnership, to focus on the enterprise market in Europe, Asia and Africa, and to develop a series of enterprise

communications products and service technologies together according to the agreement. Areas of mutual cooperation in the

initial plan allegedly included "using Huawei's fixed and mobile network technology to develop new products, tap business

opportunities in indoor coverage solutions and carry out the emerging M2M module design, and developing joint solutions for

safe cities, IoT and cloud computing data centers."

For this cooperation, Nick Jeffery, the CEO of Vodafone Group Enterprise said, "we have a number of business co-operations

with Huawei... both parties can seize the opportunity to use their expertise to meet the major challenges of the enterprise

market." For Huawei, forming a strategic partnership with Vodafone alliance has great significance for its European and

global business. The partnership will likely reduce Huawei』s risk of encountering intellectual property litigation in Europe

and other countries and regions belonging to the Vodafone alliance. But at the same time, Huawei excludes itself from

Vodafone』s rival, the FreeMove alliance.
Case Descriptions

The four indictments indicated that Huawei company submitted four patent infringement indictments to the court on the same

day. The case numbers and the disputed patents are shown in the following figure:

(figure)
The plaintiff accused the defendant T-Mobile of manufacturing, using, offering for sale, selling, and importing unauthorized

systems, products or services in the absence of authorization. These behaviors infringed one or more rights claims of the

above-mentioned 13 patents, and brought irreparable loss to Huawei. Therefore, Huawei made the same "relief" application in

four indictments, and asked the court to take the following measures against T-Mobile:

1. Rules that the defendant T-Mobile has infringed the above-mentioned 13 patents;
2. Rules that the defendant』s infringements of the above-mentioned 13 patents were willful behaviors;
3. Order the defendant to pay the plaintiff the loss caused by their infringements, which shall include the costs and

interest before judgment;
4. Permanently bans T-Mobile's infringements, or requires the defendant to pay the plaintiff Huawei "license fee" when

using the 13 patents in the future;
5. Because the defendant』s infringements were willful behaviors, the defendant shall be ordered to pay the plaintiff

three times the compensation;
6. In line with the exceptions described in section 285 of Title 35, United States Code, the plaintiff shall obtain

reasonable attorneys' fees, costs and other expenses in accordance with law;
7. The plaintiff shall be granted more relief recognized by the court.
As of January 20, 2016, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has not yet given a reply to the four

indictments submitted by Huawei, nor issued a summons to the accused T-Mobile.

Analysis on the reasons why Huawei launched an attack on T-Mobile

The conflict between Huawei and T-Mobile was traced back to 2014. On September 2, 2014, T-Mobile USA Inc. submitted an

indictment to the US District Court for the Western District of Washington, accusing Huawei of stealing trade secrets,

breaching confidentiality agreements and violating the public interest.

According to the indictment, T-Mobile accused Huawei's two employees of stealing the parameters, software and other trade

secrets of a phone testing robot called Tappy developed by the plaintiff, to develop its own mobile phone testing robot to

make profits. For this behavior, T-Mobile proposed a series of compensation claims in the "relief" application submitted to

the court. T-Mobile's appeal placed Huawei into a very awkward position, and the case is still in progress. Obviously, Huawei

wants to counter T-Mobile by accusing it of its patent infringement. Considering the close relationship between Huawei and

Vodafone alliance, and Huawei's own globalization strategy, this patent litigation will undoubtedly draws sustained

attention.

(from:METIS IP  INFO@METIS-IP.COM)