Huawei and Nordic Semiconductor enter into licensing deal

2022/06/22 Innoverview Read

Huawei Technologies has entered into a patent license agreement with Nordic Semiconductor, headquartered in Trondheim, Norway.

The agreement is said to grant a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) royalty-bearing component-level license of Huawei’s low power wide area (LPWA) cellular IoT standard essential patents (SEPs) to Nordic and its customers.

Huawei and Nordic were able to conclude the agreement through what Huawei described as “a transparent and amicable discussion” within a short period of time.

With this agreement, Nordic can bring its cellular IoT customers comprehensive legal protection, and a practical and legitimate way to access and implement Huawei’s valuable standardized cellular IoT technology. This agreement is set to bring greater commercial and legal certainty to the IoT industry.

Huawei’s Head of European IPR Department, Zhang Xiaowu, said: “Huawei owns a leading portfolio of LPWA SEPs for LTE-M and NB-IoT, a subset of the 4G standard, which creates great value for IoT.

“Huawei is pleased to reach this license agreement with Nordic, which will enable and support a large-scale deployment of this low power cellular IoT technology by different industries, further supporting the digital transformation of societies worldwide.”

Marianne Frydenlund, SVP Legal & Compliance at Nordic Semiconductor, said: “Licensing in cellular IoT is a comparably new practice in the industry, calling for flexible solutions.

“This agreement with Huawei is a big step towards harmonising the cellular IoT industry with FRAND SEP licensing practices employed throughout the global semiconductor industry.

“Both sides approached the negotiation in a reasonable and practical manner and recognised that simplification would help boost market growth to the benefit of all parties involved: Huawei, Nordic, and above all else, Nordic’s cellular IoT customers.”

(Source: IoT News https://www.iottechnews.com/news/2022/jun/21/huawei-and-nordic-semiconductor-enter-into-licensing-deal/)