Samsung and Huawei Battle It out in Parlous Patent War

Samsung and Huawei are suing each other in a patent war, new reports say.

Huawei, a Chinese-based company that recently became the third largest smartphone vendor in the world, fired the first round of lawsuits at Samsung earlier this year, alleging that they infringed on 11 of their patents.

Samsung has returned the favor — and, in a way, welcomed Huawei to the top tier of smartphone companies — by countersuing them based on an alleged infringement of six of their patents, according to The Verge.

Huawei filed the suits in May of this year, alleging that Samsung infringed on their patents for “4G cellular communications technology, operating systems and user interface software,” according to Reuters.

The suits were filed in US and Chinese courts.

For their countersuits, The South Korean-based Samsung is demanding that Huawei pay 161 million Yuan in damages, The Verge reports.

Samsung’s lawsuit accuses Huawei of infringing on patents for wireless communications, digital cameras, and other mobile technology, according to Reuters.

But while Samsung hasn’t elaborated on the specifics, the lawsuit does call out specific models of Huawei phones, including the Mate 8, Honor and other devices.

Samsung told Reuters in a statement that, despite their best efforts to solve the matter amicably, they had to take legal action in order to “defend [their] intellectual property.”

While the top list of smartphone manufacturers has always been occupied by Samsung and Apple, Huawei is quickly catching up.

Both companies are currently the top two Android manufacturers in the world, with Samsung occupying 23.2 percent of the market share, and Huawei making up 8.3 percent, The Wall Street Journal reported.

In a conference last month, Huawei announced their ambitious goal of becoming the world’s number one smartphone vendor, according to ARSTechnica.