Tech and AI

Two companies on opposite sides of a technology cold war have quietly cross licensed each other's patents

By Staff Writer  |  27 August 2026

Huawei and HP Inc announced a multiyear global patent cross licensing agreement on 26 August, under which HP takes a licence to certain Huawei WiFi patents and Huawei takes reciprocal rights in return. Neither side disclosed what it costs.

The announcement is short and says very little beyond the fact of the deal. It is multiyear. It is global. It runs in both directions. It covers, on the side that has been described, certain wireless networking patents held by the Chinese company and licensed to the American one. There is no figure, no schedule, no list of patent numbers and no term. The release presents the agreement as recognising one party's technical position and the other's standing as a maker of computers and peripheral equipment, which is the language of a settled negotiation rather than a partnership.

Through patent licensing, Huawei shares its innovation with the industry, particularly in the area of standardized technologies, which brings leading technological experiences to consumers worldwide.

Alan Fan, chief intellectual property officer, Huawei

Why a standard is a durable asset

Wireless networking is built on published standards. Anybody who makes a laptop, a printer, a router or an access point that talks to anybody else's has to implement the same techniques, which means the patents reading on those techniques are unavoidable for every manufacturer in the market. A company that is largely shut out of selling finished goods in a country can still hold rights that every seller in that country needs.

That is the whole commercial logic of this announcement. Export controls restrict what can be shipped. They do not extinguish a patent, and they do not remove the need to take a licence to it.

The reciprocal half matters as much as the headline half. A cross licence buys freedom to operate in both directions and takes the threat of litigation off the table for the term, which is worth a great deal to a business shipping millions of units a year into dozens of jurisdictions. It is also, in practice, cheaper than finding out in court what the rate should have been.

The part a contracts reader will notice

Nothing about this is a hardware arrangement. There is no supply, no joint development and no distribution. Confusing a licence with a partnership is a common error when these announcements are read quickly, and the release is careful to describe only what it is.

The undisclosed terms are ordinary. Rates in standardised technology licensing are commercially sensitive and are routinely kept confidential, partly because a published rate becomes the anchor for every subsequent negotiation and every subsequent piece of litigation. What is not published here is therefore not evidence of anything; it is the normal position.

What is not known

The other party has not been seen to comment in its own words, and its statement was not found by these means. The patents in issue have not been identified. The duration of the multiyear term has not been given, nor has the direction of any net payment, so it is not possible to say from the announcement alone which way the money runs. The one thing the document does establish is that two businesses on opposite sides of a long running political argument found it easier to license each other than to fight.