Alan Fan, the global head of Huawei‘s Intellectual Property Department, said that Huawei has licensed technology patents to Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, Bentley, Subaru, Renault and other car companies, which means that 15 million of the 70 million cars produced globally each year will use Huawei technology.
Alan Fan said that “patents are public and are not of export concern.” Patent licensing agreements allow Huawei not only to deal with foreign companies, but also to generate revenue. “In the auto industry alone, Huawei has reached deals with 15 car companies to use Huawei’s advanced wireless technology, and Huawei’s patents are generating value in many different ways.”
Huawei currently has accumulated a large number of patents, especially for technologies related to 5G wireless communications. The number of patents declared by Chinese companies in 5G is ahead of companies such as Qualcomm, Samsung, and LG. In the three years to 2021, Huawei earned about $1.2 billion worldwide from licensing, or roughly hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
