Huawei has published a new white paper focused on innovation and intellectual property at its Forum on Innovation and IP Prospects in 2021.

The white paper focuses on how Huawei has been a leader in innovation and intellectual property (IP) management since the 1990s. This has been key to Huawei rising as one of the world’s most influential technology powerhouses.

African consumers have benefited particularly from this, as Huawei has brought numerous impressive technologies to previously underserved areas on the continent.

These range from mobile network technologies that are affordable and reliable, to smartphones that offer incredible value for their price.

“We want to show the history of our innovation over the past 30 years and our long-term commitment to respecting, protecting, and contributing to IP,” said Huawei’s Chief Legal Officer Song Liuping.

Huawei – The leader in patent filing

Huawei is one of the world’s largest patent holders, and as of the end of 2020 it held over 100,00 active patents in more than 40,000 patent families worldwide.

Huawei first topped the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s (WIPO’s) list of patent filers in 2008. Since then, it has finished first on this list for all but one of these years.

This has been key to the company repeatedly dominating the market in developing important technologies, with the most notable example of this being 5G.

Huawei’s innovation has been key to several African mobile networks developing high-quality networks that offer tremendous benefits for businesses – both now and in the future.

The white paper also focuses on how Huawei’s priority on intellectual property and R&D did not appear out of nowhere.

“Innovation has been at the core of Huawei's business since the company was founded,” explained Huawei’s Head of Intellectual Property Rights Jason Ding.

“Our white paper lists the number of patent applications Huawei filed, or our R&D and innovation activities, in the late 90s and early 2000s.”

Huawei Head of Intellectual Property Rights Jason Ding.

5G royalty rate announced

The company also announced that for multi-mode 5G smartphones, it will be providing a reasonable percentage royalty rate of the handset’s selling price and a per unit royalty cap of $2.50. This will drive the adoption of 5G by making the cost structure for 5G implementers transparent and affordable.

This certainty and affordable licence fee structure goes a long way to ensuring that 5G smartphones are attainable to African consumers.

Huawei is therefore supporting African countries to embrace future technologies that drive economic growth, improved education, and a better quality of life.

• Read the full white paper here.