HONG KONG (Reuters) – Huawei pegged its patent talks with U.S. carrier Verizon (VZ.N) as “common” business activity and said such negotiations should not be politicized, days after a senator filed legislation to prevent the Chinese firm from seeking damages in U.S. courts.
FILE PHOTO: A Huawei company logo is seen at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) Asia 2019 in Shanghai, China June 11, 2019. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo
The company has demanded that Verizon pay licensing fees for more than 230 of the telecoms equipment maker’s patents and is seeking over $1 billion, a person has told Reuters, against a background of mounting U.S.-China trade tensions.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio has described Huawei’s demand as “baseless” and filed the legislation as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, which places a broad ban on the use of U.S. federal money to buy Huawei products citing national security concerns.
“We simply don’t believe Marco Rubio’s amendment could be passed as law,” Huawei’s chief legal officer, Song Liuping, said at the company’s Shenzhen headquarters on Thursday.
Intellectual property (IP) rights “should not be…
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