According to Reuters, on June 17 (Monday), US Senator Rubio introduced a bill to prevent Huawei from seeking patent compensation in the United States. The amendment seen by Reuters shows that Huawei is on the list of companies specifically observed by the US government. Huawei will not be allowed to seek remedies under US patent laws, including legal actions against patent infringement. Even if Huawei's patents are infringed by US companies, the bill proposed by Rubio will prohibit US courts from accepting these cases.
It is reported that Huawei has a total of at least 3195 patents in the United States affected by the Act. According to statistics from IFI Claims Patent Service Company, Huawei has applied for 3195 patents in the United States from 2017 to January 2019. Currently, Huawei has more than 12,000 valid patents in the United States.
Rubio has always been one of the most radical and unfriendly hawks in the United States. Before that, he had publicly accused China on social media of "stealing" American intellectual property rights as a hypocrite. This time he proposed this bill against Huawei, mainly to express his dissatisfaction with Huawei's suing of the US communications giant Verizon not long ago.
On June 14, the media reported that Huawei asked the US operator Verizon to pay US$1 billion in patent licensing fees. Verizon is the first of the four major U.S. operators and has a 40% market share in the U.S. It is a communications giant that the U.S. government attaches great importance to.
After learning that Verizon was sued by Huawei, Rubio was very dissatisfied. He posted on his social media that Huawei is a patent "rogue", accusing Huawei of retaliating against the United States through unfounded and costly patent claims. of***.
It is not enough to verbally abuse, and within a few days, he came up with such a bill, trying to use US law to suppress Huawei.
Huawei sued Verizon incident review
The news from Lutuo also mentioned that Huawei’s suing Verizon seems to be a new strategy in the protracted contest between Huawei and the US government. At that time, many domestic and foreign media said that Huawei's move was countering the US ban.
Is it true? Let's review this case again.
The total amount of US$1 billion in patent fees that Huawei requires Verizon to pay is composed of licensing fees for more than 230 patents. "The Wall Street Journal" once reported that these patents mainly cover core network equipment, wired infrastructure and Internet of Things technology, involving the network equipment of more than 20 supplier companies behind Verizon, and even some major US technology companies.
In fact, as early as February this year, Huawei requested Verizon to pay patent fees. In May, the two parties discussed the possibility of patent infringement. This all happened before the US government included Huawei on the list of entities.
This originally pure economic dispute over intellectual property has now quickly risen to the political level. To a large extent, Verizon is quietly carrying out some "small actions." In order to retreat, Verizon ran to file a complaint with the US government, claiming that it had been retaliated by Huawei, and crazily hinted to the media that Huawei suddenly came to ask for huge patent fees, which was related to political factors.
The United States expands its suppression to the field of intellectual property
At present, Rubio has included the above proposal in the amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), but the measure has not been passed into law, and there are still several steps before it is officially completed. This also means that before a statutory law is formed, the bill has no substantial impact on Huawei's patents in the United States.
But the United States always does not play cards according to common sense, which makes people caught off guard. Last night, when Ren Zhengfei had an exchange in Shenzhen with George Gilder, a famous writer of Forbes, and Nicholas Negroponte, a columnist for Wired magazine, two of the three major thinkers in the digital age, he also talked about Huawei did not expect the United States to be so determined to attack Huawei this time, and the scope of the attack would be so broad.
Ren Zhengfei also mentioned that even if Huawei is ready, its business will still be affected. Ren Zhengfei predicts that Huawei will reduce production by 30% in the next two years, revenue will drop by 30 billion U.S. dollars, and annual revenue will remain at about 100 billion U.S. dollars. It will not be able to regain its vitality until 2021.
What was also caught off guard was that a bill against Huawei’s patents in the United States was announced so quickly the day after the dialogue was over. It can be imagined that once the bill proposed by Rubio becomes a statutory law, the number of revenue decline estimated by Ren Zhengfei is likely to increase.
谈话中，任正非对于知识产权问题也作出了回应，“华为一开始在一个小公司阶段，就有道德操守。我们相信美国的判决，说我们盗取知识产权是不可能的。虽然我们有很多知识产权，但是这些知识产权不会武器化。我们的这些知识产权是通过劳动创造出来的，别人使用我们的知识产权，也要付给我们专利费“。
卢比奥的法案很可能也将会对华为的 5G 建设有一定影响。2018 年，华为申请了 5450 件国际专利，居全球第一，其中有三成是 5G 专利。目前，在全球 5G 专利的申请方面，中国厂商居于首位，中国厂商已申请全球主要 5G 专利的 34%，美国排在第三位，占 14%。其中，华为拥有 1554 个 5G SEP，位居第一，超过美国 5G 专利最多的高通公司一半还多。但一旦这些专利不被美国承认，这或将对华为的 5G 建设产生不利影响。
现在，美国对华为的打压面进一步扩大，已经从阻碍零部件采购，阻碍参加学术组织和大学活动、阻止链接公有网络发展到了知识产权领域。尽管如此，华为的应对之策，任正非在昨晚的谈话中也已经给出了答案“不过我们认为这些阻碍不了我们前进的步伐“，他还表示，即使受到打击，华为也不会减少科研投入。
美国科技公司正悄悄游说政府，要求放宽禁令
卢比奥“双标”的损招，并没有得到多数支持。彭博社曾撰文称，“专利纠纷”在科技行业中是很常见的事情。很多美国科技界人士亦认为华为向美国企业索要专利费是正当权利。
与美国政府的强硬态度不同，美国科技公司则难得的展现出来了“温和”的一面。6 月 18 日上午，有外媒报道 称，华为的美国芯片供应商，包括高通和英特尔，正在悄悄向美国政府施压，要求放宽对中国科技巨头销售的禁令，高通希望对继续对华为出售芯片。
他们称，这并不是为了帮助华为，而是为了防止对美国公司的伤害，在华为 2018 年购买组件的 700 亿美元中，约有 110 亿美元流向美国公司，包括高通，英特尔和美光科技公司。
此前，据观察者网报道，受美国对华为禁令影响，一大批美国科技巨头也将不能再与华为继续合作。不利影响是双方面的，不少美国的企业因此很受“伤害”，尤其是芯片半导体行业，6 月 13 日，美国半导体巨头博通警告称全球需求普遍放缓，受此影响，全球芯片股大跌。