18 June 2014, Shenzhen, China – ZTE Corporation has filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission, requesting it to investigate the licensing practices of Vringo Inc. and its subsidiaries in light of concerns that these practices are impeding fair competition in the telecommunications market.

As the owner of numerous standard- essential patents on telecommunications standards, Vringo is obligated to license its patents based on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms in the interest of safeguarding competition in the European telecommunications market. Despite ongoing efforts by ZTE to negotiate since 2012, the company has been unable to reach an agreement with Vringo on FRAND terms.

ZTE reserves the right to pursue further action across different jurisdictions to protect the interests of the company and our customers, ZTE steadfastly opposes all forms of abuses of intellectual property, and the improper use of patent assets as a tactic in licensing negotiations.

As one of the world’s leading technology innovators, ZTE respects the intellectual property of other companies. ZTE is committed to investment in the company’s intellectual property assets, and has signed dozens of global intellectual property licensing agreements with holders including Qualcomm, Siemens, Ericsson, Microsoft and Dolby Laboratories. In 2013, ZTE’s licensing expenses as a proportion of revenue were amongst the highest in the telecommunications industry globally.

ZTE’s strategic planning and industry-leading pool of intellectual property assets offer a strong safeguard to help the company prevail in patent litigations internationally. 

ZTE has filed applications for more than 52,000 patents globally, with more than 16,000 granted so far. ZTE is a global leader with more than 800 essential patents on the standardization 4G LTE. ZTE will continue to strengthen its portfolio of patents to attain globally-leading positions in core areas such as smart terminals, optical networking, cloud computing, big data and 4G LTE, and invest in next-generation technologies such as 5G. Such investments will be key to enhance ZTE’s competitiveness and intellectual property capabilities to help the company cope with changes in the technology landscape and market environment.

ZTE retained its global top-2 position in patent applications in the World Intellectual Property Organization’s annual rankings published this year, after being the top-ranked company in each of the previous two years.