Huawei’s Head of IP Rights department Alan Fan, recently suggested that AI innovation requires a separate patenting approach from 5G and other traditional telecom standards. This coincides with the company’s attempts to strengthen its global intellectual property (IP) presence.
Speaking at a media roundtable following its annual Innovation and Intellectual Property Forum, Fan stated Huawei’s AI portfolio follows “products related patent logic instead of standards related patent logic”, given that “AI, unlike 5G, is not a standard for any particular industry”.
He said Huawei’s goal is to protect its AI ecosystem rather than monetise individual filings. “The purpose of applying for our AI patents is to protect our AI related ecosystems and related algorithms so that we can open up those patents for all partners to use”, he noted. “The purpose is not to collect patent royalties from other parties”.
On balancing IP protection with open participation, Fan said patents remain essential even in open-source environments. “When it comes to open source, the code is open to everyone else”, he said. “The purpose of applying for the patents for this open-source context is to protect the entire open-source ecosystem”, only allowing codes to remain replicable.
He also highlighted how Huawei’s cloud and AI platforms support emerging economies. “Developing countries don’t have companies like Nvidia or Google”, Fan observed. “Our technologies, like our ecosystem, AI and cloud computing technologies, can help those countries grow their own industries and businesses”.
The executive pointed to Huawei Cloud, the vendor’s global cloud computing platform with more than 8.5 million developers, as a key driver for local innovation, enabling partners to “leverage our development tools and open-source software to develop their local apps”.
Huawei revealed at its Beijing forum that it booked around $630 million in patent licensing revenue in 2024, split roughly one-third each between Asia-Pacific, the US and Europe.
Source: Mobile World Live
Image Credit: Stock Image
