Qualcomm is also buying some of Huawei’s US patents outright, pending regulatory approval.
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The two companies’ licensing ties date back to 2001, when Huawei, then a Chinese telecom-infrastructure supplier, took a royalty-bearing license to build CDMA network equipment. Qualcomm, which once supplied chips for some Huawei phones , stopped counting royalties from Huawei in its revenue in early 2025.
The “broad patent license agreement” allows “cross licenses” and reflects both companies’ commitment to intellectual property rights and to licensing consistent with “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) principles.” The deal involves no other business cooperation, Huawei said, according to SCMP ; this implies no chip sales are involved. The deal follows a settled back royalty dispute in 2020, the U.S. revoking Qualcomm’s license to sell some hardware to Huawei in 2024, and the expiration of Huawei’s license by early 2025.
Qualcomm’s patent purchase covers compute, AI, networking, and “other technologies,” according to the announcement, but the number of patents was not disclosed, nor was any value figure. Each company credits the other’s portfolio. This suggests that the two are trading official recognition of each other’s patents.
Huawei says that, with the Qualcomm deal, the total value of its patent-licensing contracts will top $6.9 billion, counting from its first licensing income from Motorola in 2011. Since 2021, it says, its licensing business has brought in more than the company pays for other firms’ patents. In August, the company signed a multi-year Wi-Fi patent cross-license with HP and, as of 2025, the company held 165,000 active granted patents worldwide.
US allows Chinese telecom giant ZTE to purchase Nvidia H200 AI chips
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
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- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/qualcomm-will-pay-huawei-to-license-its-patents-for-the-first-time-in-historic-turnaround-reversal-in-a-5g-and-ai-cross-licensing-deal-comes-25-years-after-huawei-first-paid-qualcomm#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/membership
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