Meizu are set to hit a major bump in the road and their second lawsuit in just a few years as Qualcomm begin legal proceedings.
Meizu, one of the original Chinese smartphone brands, has had a very rocky road to success. Way back in the day, when Meizu launched their first smartphone (Meizu M8) the company managed to find themselves in legal hot water with Apple who claimed the Chinese phone was a clone of the original iPhone.
That wouldn’t be the last legal issue for Meizu though as only a few years ago ZTE filed a patent lawsuit against Meizu for their use of a ‘Halo’ home button on the chin of their phones. ZTE won that battle and since then we have seen all Meizu phones launch with a physicla home button instead.
Since losing to ZTE, Meizu has seen amazing growth both at home and abroad, but a major bump in the road is about to hit them thanks to Qualcomm.
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It has been confirmed today that Qualcomm are taking legal action against Meizu for their recent Mediatek powered phones, which the Snapdragon manufacturer believes infringes on their 3G and 4G communications patents.
In the past it was these say patents that had prevented Meizu from going for Qualcomm chips as they simply couldn’t afford to pay to use the rights for the technology, but now after a recent growth spurt and huge investment from Alibaba it looks like Qualcomm want to get paid.
Qualcomm is being an Ass. How will using a Mediatek SoC intone on their 3G and 4G communications parents?
Qualcomm is simply being pathetic in my opinion.
Wasn’t there a big commotion about Mediatek not opening their software which is against some GPL agreement? Some said they kept all their stuff closed to the public because they stole so much code from other company’s and that would be visible when they opened up.
So, very possible Mediatek doesn’t have any own 3G/4G patents, they just use those of other company’s and don’t pay for it.
That has little to do with this lawsuit. Mediatek won’t give away source code to the public for free, but they do give it away to anyone who buys their chips. This is about licensing fees for 3G and 4G networking technology, the same thing Mediatek has been in trouble with Ericson in India.
I see, thank you for explaining 🙂
It’s not all rose’s nor do the any one else from mentioned companies above have all of it actually regulated not to mention a lot of them that haven’t done it at all.
They are deliberately targeting a company that is not using their SoC’s. Even they have every right to do so it is again a uncompetitive practice & I just wonder did QC pay for the last year’s cort case they lose from Chinese government. They will win this one but will get their assess sued again.
I don’t agree with Qualcomm or any patent trolls but it’s part of the industry.
I do agree with anything that holds progress back.
I am asking my self why any of the automobile house did not patented a 5 doors car, or the automatic gear, electric window etc.. It would be really fun
There actually are/were patents for some of those. The auto world just isn’t as big of patent trolls.
Sure QC don´t want any competition from a major brand which doesn´t use QC SoC´s , mediatek already stole them a big percentage of the market last year