A patent licensing deal between Huawei and Nordic cellular IoT takes a big step towards industry-wide component-level licensing. The agreement means that all Nordic nRF91 Series LTE-M and NB-IoT products and therefore Nordic’s customers will be automatically licensed and protected, enabling a more efficient access and implementation of Huawei’s patents related to low power wide area standardized cellular technology.
Nordic Semiconductor is a Norwegian fabless semiconductor company specializing in wireless communication technology that powers the Internet of Things (IoT). The agreement grants a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) royalty-bearing component-level license of Huawei’s low power wide area (LPWA) cellular IoT standard essential patents (SEPs) to Nordic, and its customers. Nordic can bring its cellular IoT customers comprehensive legal protection, and a practical and legitimate way to access and implement Huawei’s valuable standardized cellular IoT technology. This agreement is set to bring greater commercial and legal certainty to the IoT industry.
Supporting the digital transformation of societies
“Huawei owns a leading portfolio of LPWA SEPs for LTE-M and NB-IoT, a subset of the 4G standard, which creates great value for IoT,” says Huawei’s Head of European IPR Department, Zhang Xiaowu. “Huawei is pleased to reach this license agreement with Nordic, which will enable and support a large-scale deployment of this low power cellular IoT technology by different industries, further supporting the digital transformation of societies worldwide.”
“Licensing in cellular IoT is a comparably new practice in the industry, calling for flexible solutions” explains Marianne Frydenlund, SVP Legal & Compliance at Nordic Semiconductor. “This agreement with Huawei is a big step towards harmonizing the cellular IoT industry with FRAND SEP licensing practices employed throughout the global semiconductor industry.”
Simplification boosts growth
“Both sides approached the negotiation in a reasonable and practical manner and recognized that simplification would help boost market growth to the benefit of all parties involved: Huawei, Nordic, and above all else, Nordic’s cellular IoT customers.”
