Shenzhen Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd and Alvarion of Israel recently joined the WiMax Open Patent Alliance (OPA). The OPA’s current members include Intel, Cisco, Samsung Electronics, Alcatel-Lucent, Sprint and Clearwire. Being member of the alliance means that Huawei becomes one of the licensors of the OPA. ZTE, another Chinese manufacturer, is also seeking for chances of being member of OPA.
This means that Huawei may cross license its essential patented technologies with other manufacturers. This is of exemplary meaning for Chinese manufacturers of telecommunication equipment to break patent barriers by their own innovations and intellectual property.
It is learned that Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese manufacturer, has certain advantage in WiMax industry. Huawei alone obtained 29 orders of WiMax commercial network in the first half of 2008 and 35 orders for testing network. ZTE, nevertheless, obtained 15 commercial contracts, 16& of the global commercial contracts for WiMax.
