China's Huawei files patent lawsuits against Samsung

China's Huawei has sued Samsung Electronics for patent infringement in the U.S. This is the first time that a Chinese company has sued Samsung Electronics. Experts see this case as proof that China's technology has significantly improved, considering that Chinese companies have had a strong reputation of copying foreign companies' products in the past.

On Tuesday (local time), Huawei filed a petition against Samsung Electronics to a U.S. District Court in San Francisco and the Shenzhen People's Court, saying that Samsung Group companies including Samsung Electronics have infringed on 12 patents: four regarding smart-phones and eight regarding wireless networking. Huawei has invested 10 to 15 percent of their annual income in research and development, has applied for 3,898 patents last year, and has applied for more patents than any other company in the world during the last two years. For 30 years, Huawei, a small communications company that was founded in 1987, has become a patent generator, which is now threatening Samsung.

The smart-phone industry perceives this case as the beginning of Huawei's plan to "take down Samsung." This means that Huawei started seeing Samsung, as a competitor in their field, which are communications-related patents.

Samsung will sternly respond to the suit. "We will file a counter-suit. If that is what Huawei wants, they will have it," Ahn Seung-ho, chief of Samsung Electronics' Intellectual Property Rights Division, told reporters at the Samsung building in Seocho on Wednesday.

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