Huawei agrees patent licence with Fraunhofer IIS

Chinese technology business Huawei has entered into a global patent licence agreement with Germany-based Fraunhofer IIS.

Fraunhofer IIS is one of 72 institutes and research units of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, a research organisation.

The agreement, which covers Fraunhofer IIS’s MPEG-4 audio patent portfolio, addresses past and future use of the portfolio in Huawei’s products.

According to a press release, published yesterday, February 26, Fraunhofer IIS is one of the main developers of the MPEG-4 audio codec family.

The codecs are used in communications services, TV, radio and streaming services worldwide.

Stefan Geyersberger, head of patents and licensing at Fraunhofer IIS, said that the patent portfolio has been implemented in more than ten billion devices worldwide to date.

Fraunhofer IIS said it was committed to maintaining a level playing field by making its portfolio available through its pool and individual patent licensing programmes on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

Huawei was hit with a new form of injunction—covering FRAND—in June last year. The English High Court imposed the injunction after Huawei failed to accept a licence that the court found to be fair and reasonable.

Earlier this month, Samsung Electronics asked a US court to prevent the enforcement of a Chinese injunction which ordered Samsung to cease making and selling products that infringe two of Huawei’s patents.