Huawei is the global leader in 5G patents and is now deciding how much to charge Apple and Samsung for access to its lucrative assets.

Huawei (15.39%) leads in 5G patents, followed by Qualcomm (11.24%), ZTE (9.81%), Samsung (9.67%), and Nokia (9.01%).

As first reported by Bloomberg, Huawei has begun talks with the two tech giants to negotiate royalty rates.

Apple, in particular, is bouncing from one patent battle to another.

Cupertino settled a high-profile patent dispute with Qualcomm in 2019 after several years of back-and-forth allegations where Apple claimed the chipmaker was charging unfairly for access to essential patents.

In that dispute, Apple said it was willing to pay reasonable royalties for access to patents. The companies ultimately settled out-of-court where Qualcomm received at least $4.5 billion.

It will be interesting to see whether Huawei and Apple reach a deal fairly quickly or whether it escalates to the long-running court battles that ensued in the Qualcomm case.

Huawei claims that it will be fair and intends to charge less for its patents than other large 5G patentholders like Nokia and Qualcomm. Jason Ding, who heads up Huawei’s intellectual property department, says the company is capping per-phone royalties at $2.50.

The Chinese tech giant is expected to collect around $1.2 billion in patent and licensing royalties between 2019 and 2021.

Last week, Samsung reached a patent deal with Nokia which enabled the company to access the latter’s innovations in video standards.

(Photo by Alex Escu on Unsplash)

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