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Patents / Licensing

Qualcomm is shopping Huawei's patents while Washington still blocks the chips

Huawei and Qualcomm announced a multi-year patent cross licence covering 5G, compute, AI and networking, and Qualcomm is buying some of Huawei's US patents once regulators approve. No money terms were disclosed.

Editorial Take

Washington spent years telling the world that Huawei is too risky to sell fancy chips to, then watched America's biggest mobile chip licensor stroll into the patent shop anyway. It is a bit like putting a store on a sanctions list and still letting shoppers buy the recipe book in the window. Ideas, it turns out, clear customs more easily than wafers. Regulators still get the final say on the patent sale, but the deal is a good reminder that the chip world is more tangled than any list can capture, and that even rivals sometimes need to borrow each other's homework.

Qualcomm is shopping Huawei's patents while Washington still blocks the chips

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