U.S. patent licensing firm InterDigital Inc. said yesterday it reached a settlement with network equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co. to resolve their dispute over patent royalty rates.
The firms said they agreed to a binding arbitration, which is expected to be completed before the end of 2014.
InterDigital and Huawei would also seek dismissal of all related litigation, including two U.S. International Trade Commission (UTC) investigations, InterDigital said in a regulatory filing.
The companies would also move to dismiss related U.S. district court proceedings.
Huawei would withdraw its various antitrust complaints but not an action it filed in China.
The agreement also gives InterDigital the opportunity to further appeal China’s Supreme People’s Court decisions regarding its Chinese standards-essential patents. The current arbitration process is expected to be complete before the end of next year.
China’s National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic planner, is investigating InterDigital for violating the country’s anti-monopoly law.
Huawei is “pleased that we have further been able to reach an agreement with InterDigital that puts an end to continued and expensive litigation,” William Plummer, a Washington-based spokesman for Huawei, said yesterday.
Shenzhen-based Huawei claimed InterDigital charged it a royalty rate far above what it obtained from Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.
Last week, the UTC ruled that Huawei, Nokia Corp. and ZTE Corp. did not infringe mobile phone patents owned by InterDigital. (SD-Agencies)
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