IN an another update to the allegations and accusations leveled at Huawei as part of the larger, on-going subtext of the China-US trade war, Huawei announces its rejection of claims regarding smartphone-camera patent as well as multiple alleged probes by the US government.
Wall Street Journal, a well known US based publication, reported on August 30 2019 that the US Department of Justice probed Huawei on alleged theft of smartphone-camera patents amongst others.
The statement of clarification issued by Huawei says that on May 28, 2014, Huawei met with Mr. Rui Pedro Oliveira where the latter pitched his camera design with alleged US Patent pending. Huawei rejected his offer and no contact was made since.
"Four years later, beginning in April 2018 and continuing through March 2019, Mr. Oliveira began e-mailing Huawei, claiming that the EnVizion360 camera, independently designed and developed by Huawei, had infringed his US patents. In his e-mails, he repeatedly issued threats, saying that if Huawei did not pay an extortionate amount of money, he would go to the media and exert pressure through political channels.
Huawei categorically rejects Mr. Oliveira's claims of patent infringement, and has provided detailed documents in support of its stance (see visual comparisons of the two products below as example). Nevertheless, Mr. Oliveira proceeded to feed a false narrative to the media in an attempt to tarnish Huawei's reputation. He made further efforts to exert pressure on Huawei through senior government officials, trying to make the company cede to his demands and hand over large sums of money.
On March 26, 2019, in order to defend the company's reputation and protect its legitimate rights and interests, Huawei filed a complaint against Mr. Oliveira before US court for a declaration of non-infringement of Mr. Oliveira's U.S. patents. This is a normal civil procedure. However, Mr. Oliveira declined to accept the service of Huawei’s complaint and summons, resulting in delaying of the court proceedings," said the Huawei statement.
It goes on to say that Oliveira had taken the current geopolitical friction to push a narrative that suits him toward the media, also lambasting the US Department of Justice for launching criminal investigations without solid evidence.
While tensions have been high and frictions sparking some clash in the past, the China-US trade war came to life fully when the current POTUS Donald Trump came into power. He accuses of China of unfair trading practices and intellectual property theft.
Huawei, a global telecommunications and ICT solution provider, had come under heavy fire through multiple fronts - a glaring example of the trade war between the two super powers that many experts have now switched to call a "technology cold war".
Read the full statement released by Huawei here: https://www.huawei.com/en/facts/voices-of-huawei/media-statement-regardi...
