Recently, new progress has been made in the patent war between Huawei and Samsung beginning from last year in China.

On September 30, 2017, the Patent Reexamination Board of SIPO (hereinafter referred to as PRB) issued 8 patent invalidation decisions on the related patents of Samsung, among which, 5 were announced invalid totally, 1 invalid in part and 2 valid.

By far, 15 out of the total 16 patents on the basis of which Samsung sued Huawei for patent infringement in China have got decisions on their validity. 10 patents were announced invalid totally, accounting for 62.5%.

The war in China may trace back to May 25, 2016, when Huawei filed lawsuits for patent infringement against Samsung in the United States and China, specifically in the District Court for the Northern District of California and the Shenzhen Intermediate Court.

According to Huawei, they are willing to settle the disputes with Samsung on a global scale which involves many patents since Samsung illegally used the intellectual property of Huawei and sold its own products throughout the world. In response to Huawei's action, Samsung filed 10 patent infringement lawsuits against Huawei.

On June 27, 2016, Huawei filed further lawsuits against Samsung et al with Quanzhou Intermediate People's Court, seeking for a compensation of 80.50 million RMB. Less than one month later, Samsung sued Huawei with Beijing Intellectual Property Court on July 22, 2016, seeking for a compensation of 161 million RMB. Meanwhile, Huawei sued Samsung for patent infringement with Beijing Intellectual Property Court.

In the patent war between Huawei and Samsung, totally 16 patent infringement cases were initiated by Samsung against Huawei, with 10 cases before the Shenzhen Intermediate Court, 6 before the Beijing Intellectual Property Court.

In April, 2017, the Quanzhou Intermediate Court made its first instance decisions on the lawsuits filed by Huawei against Samsung, holding that 22 products of Samsung infringed the patent rights of Huawei and that Samsung shall stop manufacturing, selling and offering to sell 22 kinds of Galaxy serial cellphones containing the patented technologies. Meanwhile, Samsung is ordered to pay a compensation of 80 million RMB and 500 thousand RMB for the reasonable costs to stop infringement.

As mentioned before, on September 30, 2017, the PRB announced 5 Samsung patents invalid, 1 Samsung patent invalid in part and 2 Samsung patent valid. All of the invalidation actions were initiated by Huawei. Among the 16 patents on which Samsung filed lawsuits against Huawei, only 3 were maintained valid, 2 were announced invalid in part and 10 were announced invalid totally.