$142 million! If it weren't for the U.S. certification, I wouldn't know that China's 5G patents are so valuable.
A few years ago, the Chinese company ZTE transferred and sold five 5G-related patents it applied for to a G+Communications company in the United States.
Then, G+ found out that South Korea's Samsung was infringing on these patents, so it took Samsung to court in a lawsuit.
In January 2024, the U.S. court ruled that Samsung infringed two of the patents and demanded that Samsung pay $67.5 million in license fees, equivalent to about 480 million yuan.
However, just as Samsung admitted that it wanted to compensate according to the rules, it never expected that the ups and downs of his life would come too quickly.
In April, the U.S. judge went back and recalculated, sorry, I miscalculated before, the correct amount should be 142 million US dollars, equivalent to 1 billion yuan.
Obediently, more than double the previous one.
It is worth mentioning that when the award of $67.5 million was awarded, the value of these two patents was already the highest in the world.
Even they didn't expect that just a few months later, their worth would rise like a rocket.
Just ask the question is not surprising, the thorn is not exciting!
This can confuse Samsung, what's the situation, why is the amount of compensation so big?
In this regard, the jury of the second trial of the US court gave a corresponding explanation, saying that they had thought that these license fees were "continuous royalties" rather than "one-time royalties".
To put it simply, the specific 5G product that infringes should cover all of Samsung's 5G products, so the amount of compensation will be greatly increased.
soared from $67.5 million to $142 million, and it is estimated that Samsung wants to cry without tears.
However, this also makes it the most expensive 5G patent in China's history, and it also gives China's 5G patent authority.
I didn't expect patents to be so valuable! Now, the Chinese people are also raising their eyebrows!
Some people will ask, with such a high amount of compensation, can ZTE get a piece of the pie?
According to industry insiders, it was said that the two parties had an agreement that in addition to the transfer fee, ZTE also held the right to 20% of the income from the transfer of patents.
In other words, ZTE can get $28.4 million.
Of course, this is just speculation from the outside world, and as for the real situation, it is not known.
However, it can be clear that China's 5G core patents have really high gold content.
The scale of 5G patents in China
According to the Research Report on Global 5G Standard Essential Patents and Standard Proposals (2023) released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, ZTE ranks fourth in the global 5G patent ranking in terms of the proportion of effective global patent families.
In first place is Huawei, with 14.59%, followed by Qualcomm of the United States with 10.04%, and Samsung of South Korea with 8.80%.
According to data released by the State Intellectual Property Office of China, in 2022, Huawei topped the list of domestic invention patents with 5,805 patents.
In terms of 5G patents, in 2022, more than 210,000 5G standard-essential patents were declared worldwide.
In terms of applicant rankings, Huawei has declared more than 6,500 5G SEP families, accounting for 14%, ranking first in the world.
At this moment, to say "Huawei is far ahead", there is nothing wrong with Lao Tie.
Of course, Huawei's achievements are inseparable from its huge R&D investment.
According to relevant data, Huawei has invested more than 977.3 billion yuan in R&D in the past decade.
Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei, once said that R&D is not just as simple as throwing money, but more importantly, investing in talents.
To this end, Huawei uses double or even triple salaries to recruit top talent from around the world.
At the end of 2022, Huawei had more than 114,000 R&D employees, accounting for 55.4% of the total number of employees, with R&D investment of 161.5 billion yuan and a R&D expense ratio of 25.1%.
At the same time, Huawei said that it will invest more than 10% of its sales revenue in research and development every year.
By the end of 2022, Huawei held more than 120,000 valid patents worldwide, with more than 40,000 in China and Europe, and more than 20,000 in the United States.
Some people will be curious, ZTE's two 5G patents have obtained such a huge income, so how much patent fees can Huawei collect in a year?
According to public data, Huawei's patent licensing revenue has reached US$560 million in 2022, and for the second consecutive year, patent revenue is greater than patent expenditure.
In the past eight years, Huawei's patent revenue has been 3.16 billion US dollars (equivalent to about 22.7 billion yuan).
Huawei's patents not only cover 5G, but also include WiFi connectivity, optical transmission, optical intelligence, audio and video, autonomous driving, and software technologies.
In other words, as long as it is used in the field of Huawei's patents, whether it is mobile phones, communications, or intelligent driving, the money that should be paid still has to be paid.
For example, in terms of mobile phone patent licensing, Huawei charges no more than US$2.5 (equivalent to about 18 yuan) for 5G mobile phones.
By the end of 2022, about 350 million 5G mobile phones had been recognized by Huawei.
In other words, this income alone is as high as 875 million US dollars, equivalent to about 6.28 billion yuan.
And this is already the lowest fee in the world.
In comparison, Qualcomm's patent fees in the United States are terrifying.
For example, if Qualcomm's SEPs are used and the phone only supports 5G, Qualcomm will charge 2.275% of the price of the whole device.
If it is a multi-mode phone (supporting 3G, 4G, 5G), 3.25% of the selling price will be charged.
If you use Qualcomm SEPs plus non-SEPs, then sorry, 5% of the price of the whole machine will be charged.
However, Qualcomm said that the upper limit of patents is $400 per unit, that is, more than $400 is also calculated as $400.
Compared with Huawei, it is calculated according to the quantity, Qualcomm is calculated according to the selling price, and the heart is really too black, and it is a patent troll.
Because of this, in fiscal year 2022, Qualcomm's technology licensing business revenue reached US$6.358 billion, or about RMB 45.5 billion, accounting for 14.38% of the overall revenue.
According to data, in 7 years, Qualcomm has earned 1.5 trillion yuan in 5G patent fees from China.
It can be said that relying on patent fees to obtain revenue is really a good way to "lie down and earn".
Now I know why domestic communication companies are desperately spending money on research and development.
Because patents are moats, standards, and silver for nothing.
After all, no one's money is blown by the wind.
end
From the collection of patent fees, you can see the huge difference between China and the United States.
The United States is a global harvester that can reap the maximum profits, and there is no room for bargaining.
But China is not, on the whole, it is still relatively kind, and it belongs to the kind of hello, I am good, everyone is good.
So, why do you say that the world has been bitter for a long time, now you know.