HP inks deal with blacklisted Huawei for licensing Chinese firm’s WiFi tech

BEIJING — U.S.-based personal computing and printing firm HP has signed a multi-year global agreement for licensing certain WiFi patents from Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, the companies announced Wednesday.

It’s a sign of adoption of Huawei’s technology outside China, despite the U.S. blacklisting the company in 2019, a move that restricted it from working with American suppliers such as Google.

“This is a standard-essential patent license covering Wi‑Fi technology – something used broadly across the industry and routine for companies whose products connect to Wi‑Fi. It is not new, does not represent a broader strategic or commercial relationship, partnership, or collaboration with Huawei,” HP said.

The deal comes after a patent dispute involving HP, Huawei and other companies that resulted last fall in an agreement allowing the U.S. company to access a pool of 2,000 patents related to wireless network connectivity. Huawei was one of the founding members of the patent pool, called Sisvel WiFi 6.

HP added in a subsequent statement that the company was compelled to license the WiFi patents after it was sued by Huawei over their use. “HP was forced to either license or litigate with the risk of limiting our ability to serve our customers,” it said.

The latest global cross-licensing agreement includes “valuable reciprocal patent rights from HP,” Steven Geiszler, who represented Huawei in the negotiations, said in a statement. Texas-based Geiszler was a senior in-house intellectual property lawyer for Huawei for nearly a decade, until he set up his own firm in April with Huawei as his main client.

HP is scheduled to release earnings Thursday morning Beijing time. HP was spun-off as a separate firm in 2015 after Hewlett-Packard Company was split into two units.