Huawei files a lawsuit against Amazon over patent violation; possible involvement of E-Ink screen products

Huawei files a lawsuit against Amazon over patent violation; possible involvement of E-Ink screen products

Huawei, a global leader in telecommunications and consumer electronics headquartered in Shenzhen, China, filed a fresh court notice on October 26 about an ongoing dispute over the alleged violation of invention patent rights.

Amazon, along with two of its subsidiaries, and Compal Electronics, alongwith three of its subsidiaries, have all been identified as defendants in the case. On December 8, 2022, the case will be tried in the Intermediate People's Court of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.

Since Compal Electronics is a party to this patent dispute, Huawei may have been targeting e-ink screens or goods similar to them, based on reports from the Chinese media site Guancha. In this particular industry of consumer electronics, Huawei and Amazon have a close competitive relationship.

Compal Electronics, headquartered in Taiwan, is a major contract assembler for computer industry leaders including Hewlett-Packard and Dell. It operates foundries in the Chinese towns of Kunshan and Nanjing, among others.

Amazon said in June that the Kindle e-bookstore would cease operations in China on June 30, 2023, thereby pulling out the platform from the country.

In the meantime, the Huawei MatePad Paper, a HarmonyOS-powered e-ink tablet debut in March 2022, exceeded the Kindle Youth Edition. Following its introduction, shipping more than 110,000 copies in the three months in terms of online sales volume is less than two months.

E-ink tablets are perfect for reaching a wider audience and the Huawei MatePad Paper, which runs on the HarmonyOS system, is a significant improvement over the Kindle. It's in terms of user experience in several important categories, including content, interaction, ecology and multi-screen collaboration.

Huawei has more than 45,000 recognized patent families (over 110,000 patents) worldwide and more than 90percent of these patents are invention patents, as stated in the company's financial report for 2021. In addition, Huawei is ranked first in terms of the number of patents issued by the European Patent Office and the China National Intellectual Property Administration in 2021, as well as sixth in terms of the number of patents issued by the US Patent and Trademark Office in the same year.

Notable is the fact that on April 6, 2022, the employee community of Huawei published the meeting minutes of the Patent Licensing Business Report issued by President Ren Zhengsheng. It was stated that Huawei's intellectual property rights were previously exploited for "self-defence." Given that it has the right to communicate, an appropriate fee must be determined. The cost of patent fees shouldn't be too high or low. If they are too cheap, they will stifle societal invention.