ZTE, Huawei sued over AVC patents

Article By : Peter Clarke

Patent holders in MPEG LA's AVC pool have alleged Huawei and ZTE are using the AVC/H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10) standard without appropriate licences.

Two leading Chinese communications equipment companies, Huawei and ZTE, have been sued for using the AVC/H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10) digital video coding standard without the appropriate licenses.

The patent pool organisation MPEG LA has announced that several unnamed patent holders within its AVC pool have filed patent infringement suits against Huawei Technologies Deutschland and ZTE Deutschland, and are seeking injunctions and monetary damages.

The two patent enforcement actions have been filed in the Landgericht Dusseldorf, Germany. According to the complaints, both Huawei and ZTE are allegedly offering mobile phones in Germany that offer AVC multimedia features without having a licence to do so.

First published by EE Times Europe.

Erratum: EE Times Asia incorrectly headlined the story, "MPEG LA goes after ZTE, Huawei in infringement case," which is incorrect. As the article points out certain patent holders are suing ZTE and Huawei, not MPEG LA. We apologise to MPEG LA and our readers for this error.