LG sues Chinese smartphone company for patent infringement in Germany

Posted on : 2019-11-11 18:08 KST Modified on : 2019-11-11 18:08 KST
S. Korean electronics giant claims TCL has violated LTE patent
A TCL smartphone
A TCL smartphone

LG Electronics is suing TCL, a Chinese electronics company, for infringing patents related to mobiles phones and telecommunications technology.

The Korean electronics giant announced on Nov. 10 that it had filed a lawsuit in district courts in the German cities of Mannheim and Düsseldorf against TCL, which it claims is selling feature phones and smartphones that violate LG’s patent for the LTE standard.

Since sending its first cease-and-desist letter to TCL in 2016, LG has asked the company several times to negotiate a license for patent usage, but TCL has refused.

According to Strategy Analytics figures, the company sold over 15 million mobile phones in the global market last year.

LG Electronics previously filed suit in connection with LTE standard patents in the US and Germany, respectively, against the US mobile phone maker BLU in March 2017 and the French mobile phone marker Wiko in June 2018. Since then, it has signed a patent license contract with BLU. In its case against Wiko, it recently won victories in its first trial on all three of the patents at issue.

By Kim Jin-cheol, staff reporter

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