Huawei cellular IoT licensing deal takes a big step towards industry-wide component-level licensing

Agreement means that all Nordic nRF91 Series LTE-M and NB-IoT products and therefore Nordic’s customers will be automatically licensed and protected

Nordic Semiconductor has entered into a patent license agreement with Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. The agreement grants a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) royalty-bearing component-level license of Huawei’s low power wide area (LPWA) cellular IoT standard essential patents (SEPs) to Nordic, and its customers.

Huawei and Nordic were able to conclude the agreement through a transparent and amicable discussion within a short period of time.

With this agreement, Nordic can bring its cellular IoT customers comprehensive legal protection, and a practical and legitimate way to access and implement Huawei’s valuable standardized cellular IoT technology. This agreement is set to bring greater commercial and legal certainty to the IoT industry.

“Huawei owns a leading portfolio of LPWA SEPs for LTE-M and NB-IoT, a subset of the 4G standard, which creates great value for IoT,” says Huawei’s Head of European IPR Department, Zhang Xiaowu. “Huawei is pleased to reach this license agreement with Nordic, which will enable and support a large-scale deployment of this low power cellular IoT technology by different industries, further supporting the digital transformation of societies worldwide.”

“Licensing in cellular IoT is a comparatively new practice in the industry, calling for flexible solutions”, explained Marianne Frydenlund, SVP Legal & Compliance at Nordic Semiconductor. “This agreement with Huawei is a big step towards harmonizing the cellular IoT industry with FRAND SEP licensing practices employed throughout the global semiconductor industry.”

“Both sides approached the negotiation in a reasonable and practical manner and recognized that simplification would help boost market growth to the benefit of all parties involved: Huawei, Nordic, and above all else, Nordic’s cellular IoT customers.”