Huawei records biggest jump in patent ownership in 2020

The leading ICT equipment and solution provider, Huawei, has recorded its biggest ever annual jump in the number of patents it owns last year and consequently become one of the world's largest patent holders surpassing all its contenders in the market.

This piece of information was revealed in a new white paper on innovation and intellectual property released by Huawei recently at the Forum on Innovation and IP Prospects in 2021 and Beyond held at the company's Shenzhen headquarters.

Against all speculations and defying all pressure, Huawei has kept investing money and efforts in innovation.

The hard is paying off as by the end of 2020, Huawei held over 100,000 active patents in more than 40,000 patent families worldwide, up from just over 85,000 active patents at the end of 2019. This is the company’s biggest ever annual increase in terms of patent ownership.  

Ranked as China’s top patent holder, Huawei owns patents in telecoms equipment, particularly in 5G technology, video surveillance technologies and other forms of artificial intelligence. 

According to independent reports, Huawei was the leading applicant for patents at the World Intellectual Property Organization. Even other leading tech giants have lagged behind them.

In 2020, Huawei applied for 5,464 patents under Wipo’s patent co-operation treaty, followed by Samsung of South Korea (3,093), Mitsubishi Electric of Japan, LG Electronics of South Korea and Qualcomm of the US.

Jason Ding, Head of Huawei's Intellectual Property Rights Department, said, “Innovation has been at the core of Huawei's business since the company was founded. Huawei's success today is a result of its long-term investment in innovation and R&D.”

Ding noted that Huawei estimates it will receive about 1.2 to 1.3 billion US dollars in revenue from patent licensing between 2019 and 2021. He also announced that for every multi-mode 5G smartphone, Huawei will provide a reasonable percentage royalty rate of the handset selling price, and a per unit royalty cap at US$2.5.

“And the royalty rate we announced, will increase 5G adoption by giving 5G implementers a more transparent cost structure that will inform their investment decisions moving forward.”

Huawei filed its first patent application in China back in 1995, and its first patent application in the US in 1999. In 2008, the World Intellectual Property Organization listed Huawei as No. 1 in terms of number of patent applications. In 2019, Huawei ranked No. 2 in Europe in terms of the number of patents granted.

Huawei has been able to pull off such legit success in patent ownership owing to their long-term commitment to contributing to Intellectual Property (IP).

Huawei has 105,000 R&D employees, around 53.4 per cent of the company’s total workforce whereas its R&D investments totaled Rmb131.7bn.