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.
What happened
On Monday 5 October in Shenzhen, said it had signed a multi-year, broad patent licence with . The deal includes across , compute, AI and networking, plus Qualcomm’s purchase of certain Huawei US patents in compute, AI, networking and other technologies. Huawei said the transaction will close after the necessary regulatory approvals. No price, patent count or end date was disclosed. The companies framed the licence as consistent with fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory () principles.
Huawei’s chief intellectual property officer, Alan Fan, said the deal shows the value of Huawei’s innovations and also recognises Qualcomm’s role in modern communications. Qualcomm Technology Licensing chief John Han is quoted in the same Huawei release saying the agreement reaffirms Qualcomm’s 5G licensing programme and recognises Huawei’s continued work in 5G and other fields. Qualcomm posted a matching release.
SCMP’s Coco Feng and Nikkei Asia’s Cheng Ting-Fang and Lauly Li both carried the news the same day. Reuters, in a Miyoung Kim wire picked up by Investing.com, repeated the cross-licence scope and the US patent purchase, and noted Huawei’s first licensing payment to Qualcomm dates to 2001. SCMP recalled that the two sides settled a licensing dispute in 2020, with Huawei paying Qualcomm back licensing fees. None of them printed new deal terms beyond what Huawei stated.
Why it matters
Huawei has been on the US Commerce Department’s since May 2019, and it is still there today. Being listed means suppliers generally need a US government licence before shipping most controlled tech to Huawei, and those requests are often denied by default.
So selling Huawei advanced chips is hard, but buying its ideas is apparently fine once regulators sign off. Historically the money ran from Huawei to Qualcomm: Huawei has paid Qualcomm for wireless patents since 2001, and the two settled a fight over back fees in 2020. Monday’s announcement does not say who pays whom under the new cross licence, and Qualcomm has pushed back, in comments to the patent news site , against reports that cast it as a net payer. What the companies put on paper is the swap and the patent purchase.
What to watch: which regulators must sign off, and whether either side names the patents changing hands.