Huawei has announced that it will proceed with a lawsuit against Verizon. The Chinese manufacturer claims that the US telecommunications operator has infringed 12 of its patents and demands compensation for the use of its technology.
Verizon has unduly benefited from the use of technology produced by Huawei over several years of research and development, Song Liuping, Huawei's CLO, said in a press release. The Chinese company indicates that, before opening the lawsuit in the Texas District Court, it had negotiated with Verizon for a long period. Although it demonstrated a detailed list with evidence of patent infringement, both parties were unable to reach an agreement.
The decision to take Verizon to court comes under the trade block imposed by the Donald Trump administration, but also after several European countries and organizations have expressed their position in relation to "high-risk" companies like Huawei.
In late January, the European Commission launched a set of tools to mitigate the dangers related to the adoption of 5G by its Member States. The toolbox announced by Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president of PastaEra Digital, is not aimed at any specific country or company, but contains measures aimed at respecting the internal market and citizens against cyber hazards related to 5G.
The Brussels recommendations are based on the possible decision of the Portuguese Government to impose limits on the participation of suppliers such as Huawei in the national implementation of 5G, says the Express. The decision goes this Thursday, February 6, to the Council of Ministers. The Executive of Antnio Costa will be able to follow the recommendation of the European Commission on the guarantee that each telecommunications operator uses several suppliers to avoid the dependence of only one.
Vodafone recently announced that it will remove all Huawei equipment from the core of its European 5G structure, prompted by the UK's decision to grant limited access by 35% Chinese manufacturer to the less sensitive parts of the fifth generation network infrastructure. In all, the operation to remove components manufactured by Huawei from the most sensitive parts of Vodafone's European mobile network infrastructure will take about 5 years to be carried out, associated with a cost of 200 million euros.
The British telecom operator was not the only one to announce the removal of Huawei components from the core of its 5G infrastructure. On January 31, French company Orange announced that it had contracted Nokia and Ericsson to develop the fifth generation mobile network in France. In December 2019, the Spanish company Telefnica announced that the elimination of Huawei equipment from the 5G network is in its plans.
