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By Baek Byung-yeul
LG Electronics has filed a patent suit against French smartphone maker Wiko in a German court for infringing on its intellectual property rights in long-term evolution (LTE) technology, the Korean tech firm said Wednesday.
LG said it filed the lawsuit at the district court of Mannheim, Germany. The company said Wiko used three essential LTE network technologies patented by LG without reaching a licensing agreement. LG said the technologies are core to its LTE operation.
Since the company sent a letter of warning to Wiko in 2015, LG made several efforts to negotiate a licensing agreement, but the French company ignored those requests.
"We decided to sue the French company in order to protect our intellectual property and take strict action against unfair use of LG's technologies," Jeon Saeng-gyu, head of the intellectual property center at LG Electronics said in a statement.
Established in 2011, Wiko sells LTE-capable smartphones in the European market. According to market researcher Strategy Analytics, Wiko sold more than 10 million smartphones there last year.
LG is the leader in essential LTE technology-related patents. According to U.S.-based patent tracker TechIPM, LG held the most LTE and LTE-Advanced patents in the U.S. for five consecutive years from 2012 to 2016.
This marked the second time that LG has taken legal action against smartphone makers. In March 2017, LG sued U.S.-based phone maker BLU Products for infringing on five LG patents that are essential to LTE operation. The patent suit was resolved in the second half of last year but the terms were not disclosed.
LTE-capable mobile phones have been growing fast in the global smartphone market. According to data compiled by Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), there were about 2.54 billion LTE service users as of September of 2017.
LG has been making efforts to lead in fifth-generation (5G) networks. In November, 2016, the company developed and successfully demonstrated full duplex radio (FDR) technology for the first time ever. The new telecom technology can boost frequency efficiency in the 5G network environment.
