AP Photo/Vincent Yu
Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei.
- Huawei filed a lawsuit against Verizon on Wednesday alleging 12 counts of patent infringement.
- The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Huawei was repeatedly pressing Verizon to pay licensing fees on technologies it claimed to have patented.
- The suit is likely to exacerbate the tensions between Huawei and the US government, particuarly in the light of Huawei's victory last month when the UK announced it would allow the tech giant to build some of its 5G network.
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Huawei has launched a fresh attack in its bunfight with the US.
Huawei filed a lawsuit against US telecoms giant Verizon on Wednesday alleging 12 counts of patent infringement.
Tension between the two companies has been building for just over a year. In its suit, Huawei claims reached Verizon early last year to discuss the need for licensing its patents, and discussions between the two companies ran until January this year. The Wall Street Journal reported in June of last year that Huawei had been pressing Verizon to pay up and license over 200 of its patents.
Huawei's Chief Legal Officer Song Liuping said in a press statement that Verizon has "benefited from patented technology that Huawei developed over many years of research and development."
"Huawei is simply asking that Verizon respect Huawei's investment in research and development by either paying for the use of our patents, or refraining from using them in its products and services," he added.
Although Huawei's case against Verizon is a year in the making, the timing of its legal filing is likely to exacerbate tensions between itself and the Trump administration.
Huawei has been locked in a geopolitical firefight with the US government for the last year against the backdrop of the US-China trade war. The Trump administration claims Huawei acts as a conduit for Chinese state spying, an accusation Huawei denies.
The US has been consistently lobbying its allies to reject Huawei's 5G telecoms equipment, but received a major blow last month when the UK annouced it would allow the company to build "non-core" parts of its 5G infrastructure.
Huawei is also legally entangled with the US over the case of its CFO, Meng Wanzhou. Meng (who is also the daughter of Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei) was arrested in Canada in December 2018 at the request of the US government, where she is currently fighting extradition. Following her arrest the US also indicted Huawei for allegedly stealing trade secrets from T-Mobile - specifically a robot called "Tappy" invented by T-Mobile for testing the robustness of phone screens.
Huawei is also in the process of suing the US government over an internal rule which bans federal agents from using Huawei equipment.
Neither Huawei nor Verizon were immediately available for comment.
