Meizu is a China-based company many of you have probably heard of by now. This company is still not amongst the top 5 largest smartphone manufacturers in China, but if they manage to keep growing as they did thus far, that will change in the near future. Meizu had managed to sell 20 million smartphones last year, after they’ve sold ‘only’ 4.4 million in 2014, and that gives you an idea how fast the company is growing. Anyhow, Meizu got sued by Qualcomm quite recently, and soon after that news surfaced, Meizu decided to release an official statement saying that they’re trying to work things out with Qualcomm in order to keep the matter out of court, read on.
Qualcomm sued Meizu because of the alleged 3G and 4G patent infringement. This lawsuit regarded only the company’s MediaTek smartphones, and unfortunately for Meizu, they’ve released quite a few such devices. In their statement, Meizu did not mention how much money is Qualcomm demanding from them, but thanks to the new official info that surfaced recently, we now know that they’ve sued Meizu for 520 million Yuan ($78 million). Now, some of you might think, why would Meizu pay Qualcomm when they don’t use their chips. Well, it seems like Meizu is actually using some of Qualcomm’s 3G and 4G tech from Qualcomm, and they did not pay any royalties to the U.S.-based company for whatever reason.
Meizu has actually released a new press release, saying that they’re well aware of the importance of intellectual property, and that they’ve never refused to pay royalties. They’ve also confirmed that they’ve had talks with Qualcomm in order to keep the whole thing out of court, but have failed in their attempt, it seems like Meizu will be forced to face Qualcomm in court. Either way, Meizu has also announced a press conference for June 28th, which means they’ll talk to the public later today, and as soon as we get more info, we’ll let you know, as we usually do, but it seems like Meizu will be forced to go to court and pay the requested fee no matter what.