Smartphone chipmaker Qualcomm has filed a lawsuit against Chinese smartphone maker Meizu to address its alleged patent infringements in Germany, France and the U.S. The lawsuit followed previous legal actions back in June when the San Diego company started the legal actions against the Chinese firm.
According to Digital Trends, everything started because Meizu allegedly expanded its business by taking advantage of the lack of correct licensing, using Qualcomm´s 3G and 4G LTE technologies without properly licensing it beforehand. This, of course, did not sit well with Qualcomm.
Qualcomm Expanded Its Battle Against Meizu
Facing this situation, the chipmaker decided to file a complaint with the Beijing Intellectual Property Court, but now, it has expanded its battle by filing a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC). In addition to the legal actions in the U.S., France and Germany, this situation might represent a major threat to Meizu, which apparently refused to negotiate a license agreement.
"Meizu's refusal to negotiate a license agreement in good faith and its sales and distribution of infringing products around the world leave Qualcomm with no choice but to protect our patent rights through these additional legal proceedings," executive vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm, Don Rosenberg, told the Indian Express.
Meizu Sells Smartphones Powered By Qualcomm Processors
Although the reason of these legal proceedings is the patent issue, some analysts believe this might also have something to do with Qualcomm´s ambitions to deepen its presence in China. Thus, this problem with Meizu could be one way of gaining ground in the Asian power, in addition to transferring technology and investing in next-generation chip manufacturing.
The Chinese smartphone maker is one of the top 10 handset suppliers in Asia´s first economy, which is the biggest smartphone market in the world. According to Digital Trends, Meizu might be also one of the top 12 smartphone makers in the world, thanks to the 20 million units it sold in 2015. What's ironic, however, is that some of these products were powered by Qualcomm processors.
