China-based smartphone maker Meizu, which has the $92 M3 smartphone to its credit, is in hot water as chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. has dragged it to court over alleged patent infringement.
On Thursday, June 23, San Diego-based Qualcomm filed the complaint against Meizu at the Beijing Intellectual Property Court.
Qualcomm was compelled to take legal action against Meizu after the former was unable to come to a licensing agreement with the latter. The chipmaker has apparently attempted to negotiate extensively with Meizu and get it to sign the patent license agreement, which is in keeping with the conditions of the rectification plan Qualcomm has submitted, as well as approved by China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
The complaint states that the court upholds that the chipmaker's terms for the patent license agreement with Meizu is in compliance with the anti-monopoly laws in China.
"Qualcomm's technologies are at the heart of all mobile devices. Meizu is choosing to use these technologies without a license, which is not only unlawful, but is unfair to other licensees that are acting in good faith and respectful of patent rights, and ultimately damaging to the mobile ecosystem and consumers," stated Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm Incorporated.
Rosenberg also revealed to Reuters that the company's IP had been used and it had not been paid properly for the same. He also added that Qualcomm's focus was not on the damages, but on setting parity for all companies in China.
Qualcomm claims that the MediaTek chip-powered smartphones from Meizu are infringing the company's connectivity patents for 3G and 4G.
Meizu has avoided the use of Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipsets, likely owing to pricing concerns. Instead, it uses Samsung's Exynos and MediaTek chipsets for its top-end and mid-range smartphones, respectively.
The current legal tussle between Meizu and Qualcomm could potentially be a major hurdle for the smartphone maker, which has been embroiled in legal battles even in the past.
When the company launched its Meizu M8, Apple cried foul and claimed that the smartphone was a ripped-off version of its original iPhone. Meizu also faced the wrath of ZTE when the latter dragged it to court over a patent issue. ZTE claimed that Meizu was using its halo-style home button on its smartphones. Meizu lost the lawsuit and had to contend with phones that sported a physical home button instead.
Whether Qualcomm will emerge victorious and manage to needle some money out of Meizu, which benefited from a $590 million investment from Alibaba in 2015, remains to be seen.
Photo: Karlis Dambrans | Flickr
