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Huawei to build 5G patent book

100 billion royalty payments can't be wrong

MWC 2015 Huawei has talked up its plans for 5G at Mobile World Congress, with an emphasis on building its patent book for the next mobile standard.

The company is already in fifth place in European patent applicants for 2014 according to the European Patent Office, and had nearly 500 patents granted in that year. New filings across its whole portfolio came to 1,600 in 2014, the EPO report says.

CEO Ken Hu told MWC attendees the company's spending on 5G would rise; as Reuters notes, it had previously committed to tip $US600 million into its 5G bucket between 2013 and 2018.

The Register noted that technologies like Huawei's 5G air interface represent a shot at capturing the flag in the emerging technology.

Hu said the company's work in 5G was giving it a strong position in intellectual property.

Since he expects the 5G network to have to serve 100 billion “smart nodes”, those that get their patents into standards will ensure a fabulous annuity in the form of license payments.

To get there, he said, will need cooperation between carriers, vendors and verticals.

Hu also reckons the smart watch – like the one Huawei unveiled at MWC – is going to rule the world, which would be a vast improvement over the sub-million-unit-market Android Wear was able to garner in 2014. ®

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