In today’s mobile and tech landscapes, most companies in the field can’t take two steps without tripping over somebody else’s patents, so to speak. Of all of the companies cranking out innovations and planting their flag to sell licenses to others when the field moves as a whole toward that tech, Qualcomm is one of the biggest and most well-known names. A huge number of firms license out one or more patents from Qualcomm, and with Chinese giant Xiaomi jumping on board back in December, it was seemingly only a matter of time before other manufacturers followed suit. With Qualcomm’s Snapdragon lineup of mobile processors finding their way into more and more Chinese devices, this became even more true. Thus, major Chinese market player OPPO has joined the stable of license deal clients under Qualcomm’s belt.
Qualcomm’s patents pop up in the industry outside of their chipsets, of course – one prominent area where Qualcomm holds a lot of patents for pretty cool stuff is 4G and 3G equipment, like towers, extenders, and small cells. It’s this area of Qualcomm’s patent portfolio that OPPO has seen fit to raid. OPPO has entered into an agreement with Qualcomm to use their patents to manufacture “complete terminals”, such as endpoints and phones, for 3G and 4G service, including worldwide standards like WCDMA, TDD-LTE, and GSM. After reviewing the agreement to ensure that it jives with the plan previously approved by China’s National Development and Reform Commission, Qualcomm made things official with OPPO on Monday.
Qualcomm spoke highly of the deal, touting the fact that they’ve now managed to sign up over 100 Chinese tech firms to use their technology patents. The terms of Qualcomm’s deal with OPPO were not disclosed, but since the deal is royalty-bearing, it’s not entirely off-base to think that Qualcomm will be providing some sort of support to OPPO, since OPPO doing well would mean that Qualcomm would rake in that much more money in royalties. OPPO’s spokesperson, meanwhile, said that the deal will give them access to some of the best tech in the biz, allowing them to bring their customers a compelling suite of devices.