Chinese-based technology firm, Huawei Technologies releases its new white paper which focuses on how the company has been a leader in innovation and intellectual property (IP) management since the 1990s. This has been key to Huawei rising as one of the world’s most influential technology powerhouses.
“We want to show the history of our innovation over the past 30 years and our long-term commitment to respecting, protecting, and contributing to IP,” Huawei’s Chief Legal Officer, Song Liuping, said in a press statement.
African consumers have benefited particularly from this, as Huawei has brought numerous impressive technologies to previously underserved areas across Africa. These range from mobile network technologies that are affordable and reliable, to smartphones that offer incredible value for their price.
Huawei’s innovation has been key to several African mobile networks developing high-quality networks that offer tremendous benefits for businesses – both now and in the future.
“Innovation has been at the core of Huawei’s business since the company was founded,” Huawei’s Head of Intellectual Property Rights, Jason Ding explained.
The white paper also focuses on how Huawei’s priority on intellectual property and R&D did not appear out of nowhere. The published paper also lists patent. “Our white paper lists the number of patent applications Huawei filed, or our R&D and innovation activities, in the late 90s and early 2000s,” said Ding.
Huawei is one of the world’s largest patent holders, and as of the end of 2020 it held over 100,00 active patents in more than 40,000 patent families worldwide. The company first topped the World Intellectual Property Organization’s list of patent filers in 2008. Since then, it has finished first on this list for all but one of these years.
This has been key to the company repeatedly dominating the market in developing important technologies, with the most notable example of this being 5G.
5G royalty rate announced
Huawei also announced that for multi-mode 5G smartphones, it will be providing a reasonable percentage royalty rate of the handset’s selling price and a per unit royalty cap of USD$2.50 (roughly UGX9,200). This will drive the adoption of 5G by making the cost structure for 5G implementers transparent and affordable.
This certainty and affordable license fee structure goes a long way to ensuring that 5G smartphones are attainable to African consumers.
Huawei is therefore supporting African countries embrace future technologies that drive economic growth, improved education, and a better quality of life.
