(Chinese Version)

Meizu's headquarter in Zhuhai

Meizu has finally made its public statement on the lawsuit brought forth by Qualcomm four days after the chip maker giant's lash out.

On June 28th, Meizu held a press conference in Beijing in response to the lawsuit brought by Qualcomm, in which Mezu is sued for ¥520 million for patent compensation. Meizu’s vice president Li Nan stated that Meizu respects the idea of patent protection and promote such ideas and actions, but the company would handle the patent disputes with Qualcomm in accordance with the Patent Law and Anti-Monopoly Law of China.

Meizu presented everyone present at the press conference a black box and Li Nan asked everyone not to open it before the conference. The mysterious black boxes were not merely decorations as Li Nan had mentioned about the black box for several times before the Q&A session with the journalists. It inevitably makes people wonder what difficulties have occurred in the negotiation between Meizu and Qualcomm and why Li Nan seems to be holding some information that she can’t tell.

“We know that Qualcomm has signed patent license agreements with over 100 manufacturers, but the agreement is all in the black box and not transparent. Here at Meizu we ask for just, reasonable and even agreements instead of discriminating ones. Qualcomm has sealed all the information in black boxes. Whether it’s information about the fee for the license, charge form or whether the company has compromised Samsung and MTK’s interest or not, Qualcomn hasn’t made any of that information public.”

In short, the dispute is mainly about the information withheld in the black box, which Qualcomm prohibits Meizu from opening. Li Nan believes that Qualcomm is forcing companies to agree with whatever agreement is in the black box, which makes it impossible to insure a just market due to the lack of transparency and which Meizu can not accept.

Qualcomm has sued Meizu for Patent Infringement, following the lawsuit in which Qualcomm was fined at $975 million last year by Chinese regulators.

Some then might ask: Why over 100 Chinese companies, including Huawei, Lenovo, Xiaomi, and Coolpad etc., have signed the so called unjust agreement and Meizu still doesn't want to do it?

In response to that, Li Nan commented that Meizu might probably be the only company that could thrive without Qualcomm, which is the only advantage that Meizu possesses.

“Chinese companies should and must have the rights to fight for their interests in negotiation with Qualcomm,” Li Nan said. As a matter of fact, emerging smart phone makers such as OPPO and VIVO haven’t signed the agreement with Qualcomm yet either. Li Nan also stated that there might be chances that the three companies would team up against Qualcomm for negotiation in the future.

In reality, Meizu doesn’t equip all its phone models with Qualcomm’s chips. “We adopt the best solution from Samsung, MTK and Qualcomn. The ideal state is that we adopt the most advanced chip from the leading one during a certain period,” Li Nan explained.

“Meizu has been in the line of smart phone for a long time and has many patents. However, our patents are mainly about the design and user experience, which means we are short of patents in communication protocol. The 3G and 4G communication protocols mentioned in the lawsuit with Qualcomm are indeed used in some of Meizu’s products. The difficulty in the negotiation is that we couldn't reach an agreement on the license fee.”

At last, Li Nan emphasized that Meizu would take active actions in response to the lawsuit and continue to negotiate with Qualcomm, but would not accept Qualcomm’s black box mechanism. It’s said that Meizu is calling for a more just negotiation. At present, it’s uncertain where this patent dispute will go eventually. TMTpost will be keeping track of this event and issue follow-up report.

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[The article is published and edited with authorization from the author @Ma Jing, please note source and hyperlink when reproduce.]

Translated by Garrett Lee (Senior Translator at PAGE TO PAGE), working for TMTpost.