China’s Huawei and Amazon in patent licencing agreement

SHENZHEN, China (Reuters): China’s Huawei Technologies (HWT.UL) and US tech giant Amazon (AMZN.O) said they had signed a multi-year patent licencing deal that resolves litigation between them.

Most terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Alan Fan, head of Huawei’s intellectual property rights department, said the Chinese firm had ended lawsuits brought against Amazon in Germany over patented technology related to wifi and video playback.

The United States has barred Chinese telecom companies from its market citing concerns about data, and designated Huawei and ZTE (000063.SZ) as threats, requiring US carriers to remove their equipment from US networks.

It has also prevented US firms from supplying Huawei with chips and other components, crippling its smartphone business.

Despite those tensions, the patent licence deal shows “American and Chinese companies and companies from other regions are cooperating without limitations in standards and patent licensing,” Fan said.

Huawei also announced it had signed a cross-licencing patent deal with domestic smartphone maker Vivo covering communication technologies including 5G. Huawei has similar patent agreements with Chinese smartphone manufacturers Xiaomi (1810.HK) and Oppo.