U.S. 337 investigation concludes final victory for Huawei ZTE wins

After more than a year of difficult lawsuits, ZTE and Huawei responded to the investigation of IDCC "337" and ended in a big victory.

On the early morning of the 20th, Beijing time, the administrative judge of the United States International Trade Commission (hereinafter referred to as "ITC") made a final ruling on InterDigital v. ZTE and other patent infringement cases. ZTE and Huawei did not violate Article 337 and did not infringe upon the plaintiff's lawsuit. Of the six patents, the remaining ones were also found to be invalid. ITC this final ruling upheld the preliminary results of June 28 this year.

On July 24 last year, U.S. Science and Technology Assets, Phoenix Digital Solutions LLC, and Patriot Scientific filed an application with ITC, alleging that some of the wireless consumer electronic devices and components sold by the U.S. and domestic U.S. markets had infringed their patent rights ( U.S. Patent No. 5,809,336); On August 24, 2012, the US ITC formally opened an investigation, in which China Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. and ZTE Corporation were involved as mandatory responders.

In January of this year, ITC conducted investigations on ZTE and Huawei. On June 28th, the ITC made a preliminary ruling in which one of the seven patents filed by the applicant InterDigital was invalid and the other six were not infringed.

According to the final result, ITC will not issue exclusion orders and injunction orders against ZTE and Huawei products. InterDigital can subsequently appeal to the Federal Circuit Court.

Guo Xiaoming, vice president and chief legal officer of ZTE Corporation, said that he was pleased to see ITC make this fair ruling. This was a difficult battle for ZTE to counter the abuse of international patents. However, in the end, ZTE will continue to succeed. The U.S. market operates and provides customers with quality products and services.

Guo Xiaoming also stated that ZTE spent more than 20 billion yuan to accumulate intellectual property for more than 20 years. At present, it has accumulated more than 50,000 global patents and 14,000 authorized patents. This has helped the company face 337 investigations in the United States and various The litigation warfare played a key role, and this victory will greatly encourage the confidence of subsequent Chinese companies in responding to international patent litigation.

Huawei responded by saying that from the very beginning, it was confident that it won the lawsuit. The company is pleased to see ITC agree that InterDigital's lawsuit is not based on facts. As of the end of December 2012, Huawei had applied for 41948 Chinese patents, 1224 international PCTs and 14494 foreign patents, and had obtained a total of 30240 patents.

The so-called “Section 337 investigation” is an administrative relief system or quasi-judicial relief system that is independent of the federal court system as stipulated by US law. It was originally named after the US Customs Act 1930 (Section 337). Section 337 divides unfair trade practices in imports into unfair trade practices in general and unfair trade practices in relation to intellectual property rights, but almost all of the 337 investigation cases involve intellectual property issues.

It is understood that the US 337 investigation has frequently been applied to trade frictions against Chinese companies in recent years. In 2012, the US 337 investigation and investigation initiated 60 cases, and 18 cases involved Chinese companies. In the first half of this year, the United States investigated 337 cases in China, including Huawei. ZTE and ZTE have encountered 5 consecutive attacks.

Zhang Zheng, executive vice president of the Shenzhen Patent Association, said that when the product enters the US market, the company should do some patent analysis in advance. When confronted with the infringement of the accused, do not be afraid and should respond scientifically and actively. This has a higher chance of success.